


101 Places to Remember

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Arthurian influences, Episode Fix-It: s04e08 Silence in the Library, Episode Fix-It: s09e12 Hell Bent, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Polyamory, Semi-Public Sex, Sexting, reluctant voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:44:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 101
Words: 34,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6819730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered, it can come back. </p><p>The interweaving narratives of the Doctor, Clara, River, Me, and two TARDISes as they try to put things back together, one place at a time.</p><p>Additional tags/characters will be added as additional chapters are added. All 101 of them. Don't worry, I've written everything, so this will be published, a few chapters at a time, every week.</p><p>Most chapters will be Teen or so, but there will definitely be some filth. Will try to tag chapters as appropriate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Essex, 1140s

**Author's Note:**

> Three basic conceits at play here: interlocking, non-linear narratives; chapters structured (loosely) around a single place; vague and shifting Arthurian resonances, especially the Grail quest. Ultimately in service of patching that gaping hole left after Hell Bent. 
> 
> Also, this is me putting my cards on the table: there is going to be a happy ending, goshdarnit. Seriously, those last three episodes especially were exquisitely beautiful yet painful. 
> 
> Finally, an incredible amount of thanks to my two terrific betas, imaginary_golux and infinite_regress! Without their help this would be an immeasurably worse story and may never have gotten finished. Go read their stuff.

“Magician!” Bors cries before the Doctor cold-cocks him with a blow to the head. He winces; it took all of his considerable force to floor the granite-skulled Saxon.

“Sorry about that,” the Doctor says, and disables the Dalek tech still packed into the man’s brain. 

After an astonishingly short period of time, Bors clambers back to his feet. “Magician!” he cries, undeterred. “Come, you must dine with my family.”

The Doctor surreptitiously scans Bors’s family with the sonic sunglasses (not that he isn’t fond of his new screwdriver, but he’d made himself a fresh pair as soon as he could because sometimes he didn’t have a hand free). Clean, thank goodness. He’d hate to have to punch out wee Sibley. He blinks as he takes off the sunglasses and his eyes adjust to the dim firelight. Seated around a massive round table must be every relative Bors has. “Sweet mercy, man, I hope they gave you a bulk discount.” They smile politely at him as they gesture him to the last seat at the table. Ah, he realizes. Not funny yet. He’s trying to get better at that. He nods, and racks his brain for a joke that might transcend culture and lack of technology.

He tries not to gag as the food is passed. He takes only enough to be polite. “So, Magician,” Bors asks. “What brings you here?”

“The last time I visited you, I thought I was going to die.” Bors nods somberly. “Now I think I’m going to do something harder; I think I’m going to live.” His memory is fuzzy, but a phenomenal sense of loss sits between his hearts.

Bors toasts the Doctor’s words. “Then find something to live for.”

“Bors,” the Doctor says, delighted, “I am an idiot.”


	2. A Playground, England, 1990s

He can remember the neural block, and roughly why he used it. But every time his thoughts try to stray to him/her, he can see only a fuzzy placeholder. It makes his teeth itch. His head is starting to spin. 

On second thought, that's just the merry-go-round. (Merry, merry, he thinks. Merry Christmas? Or something else?) “Why am I on a merry-go-round?” he asks the sky. It doesn't answer. Cheeky bastard. “Hypothesis: I wanted to sit down and I was at a playground.” His short-term memory is a bit spotty—not properly calibrated, he suspects. “Which suggests that the effect can be defeated.”

He produces a small rubber ball and begins to bounce it on the floor of the merry-go-round with his left hand. “Premises: one, there is someone whom it is imperative that I forget. Two, we traveled together for some time. Three, I get an itchy sensation whenever I try to think about him/her. Four, I am having that itchy sensation right...now.”

The merry-go-round glides to a stop. A small face framed by brown braids looks down at him. “Why are you talking to yourself?” the girl asks.

“Because I've lost someone,” he replies. Deja vu, he thinks. “Maybe I'll find a quiet room and think about it.”

“Good idea,” says the small face. “I think I'll try that,” she decides, and darts off. 

Three other children run up screaming, spinning the merry-go-round around and around. He nearly loses his rubber ball. He closes his eyes to see white letters on blank slate. _What’s the plan?_

“Find what I’m looking for.”

_But first?_

“Find out what I’m looking for.” After all, he has no idea what he’s lost. Ordinarily he would be all for plowing ahead, heedless of the risks, but he senses that this is somehow different from his usual breed of crisis. He hums a wordless tune as he plans.

Much later, in the middle of a lonely night, it dawns on him. “I've met her before, the girl, and the girl was her,” he babbles. He sits up with a start, but the girl is gone, her face already elided from his memory.


	3. Akhaten

Merry, merry, he thinks. Another little girl like another little breadcrumb. He doesn't particularly care where the trail is leading, except in an abstract sort of way. He knows there's something interesting at the end, and when you've lived as long as he has, that's enough. He's gotten reckless in his old age. He wonders who's to blame for that.

“Excuse me,” he begins. The diminutive alien averts its eyes and skitters away. Ah, yes, he thinks, looking at his reflection in a golden bowl for sale. Eyebrows. And he can’t seem to shake this frown. “Excuse me!” he shouts, so half the bazaar can hear him. “Does anyone remember the person I was with the last time I was here? It would have most likely been a humanoid of indeterminate height and uncertain attractiveness! Balance of probabilities favors a human female between the ages of fifteen and forty-one, but not necessarily. I also would have looked significantly younger and with worse fashion sense.” Not, he admits, a lot to go on. Perhaps he might have phrased things a bit better. 

{I remember you,} growls the wolf-woman, Dor'een. He would gladly trade his sonic screwdriver for some answers now. {You still smell the same, down in your soul. You and your friend, you helped us at the last Festival of Offerings.} Not the most recent, he realizes. The final. Oops.

{Good to see you again,} he barks back. {You remember my friend?} he asks, haltingly.

{It was many years ago,} she begins, and closes her eyes. {But I remember her scent as well. Nutmeg and jasmine and loss and bookpaper and stardust.} She takes another sniff at him. {You smell of stardust as well,} she adds.

{Thank you,} he yowls quietly. Well, a scent. That's something to go on.


	4. The Time Vortex

The Time Vortex is the natural home of all time machines, from the fabled sentient TARDISes of the Time Lords to time capsules without two spare memory chips to rub together. It doesn't tend to be a terribly crowded place, what with even very basic time-travel being a monumental scientific accomplishment even for an advanced society. 

This was amplified in the wake of the Time War. For one thing, its conclusion had put the Time Lords and the Daleks out of commission for more or less long periods of time. For another thing, it had wiped out more than a few species, almost as collateral damage. Terribly sorry and all that. Speaking of collateral damage, there were also the scars to time itself, still slowly healing: treated, some said, by a doctor. And of course the whole mess had left rather a sour taste in the mouth of any sensible creature who had borne witness and lived. Well, the universe had said, if this is what mucking about with relativity gets you, count us out.

All of this is a rather roundabout way of saying that the Doctor's TARDIS had gotten rather used to having the place to herself, in a lonely sort of way. Sometimes she could feel some of the Doctor's strays flickering by, often her Child or the Wrong One. But the presence of another TARDIS... Oh, that was old and new all at once. This, she thinks, will bear watching.


	5. The Doctor's Mind Palace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor ruminates on Daleks, gender, and grammar.

At least, he ruminates, he has found that C (for companion) was a woman. That makes asking questions easier in English. Why an otherwise adequate language had chosen to limit its pronouns to male, female, inanimate object, and plural, he had never understood. How these pudding brains managed to reach the Moon before inventing a workable third-person-nonbinary set of pronouns was unfathomable. And there were really only so many times you could ask someone if they had seen a person of unknown/indeterminate gender before getting what even he could recognize as very strange looks.

As opposed to Daleks. Try picturing a male Dalek or a female Dalek, or a Dalek of any of the thirteen genders of the Platarans. They’re more like a virus than anything you might call alive.

Try picturing a Dalek as a being capable of reproduction of any kind, sexual or otherwise. Actually, he reconsiders, don’t do that. But, he muses to an empty mental storeroom, the point stands. There’s no caring, no nurturing to a Dalek. He can just about come to grips with the idea of them being churned out in factories but only because he’s seen them with his own eyes (and destroyed them). No courage, no humor, just raw, industrial hatred. He shudders. 

Try imagining a Dalek loving a child. Cooking for it, feeding it. Reading it a bedtime story. Actually, he thinks, try imagining a Dalek doing anything except killing, and maybe unsticking a toilet. Really, it was a miracle they accomplished anything with those daft plungers. 

Try to think of a Dalek as a person, with a face, dreams, loves. He shakes his head at this. Now, why did this remind him of something?


	6. The Dalek Asylum

It had started here, he remembered that much. With opera and souffles and too many Daleks. He could never resist a puzzle. Could never resist her.

He materializes the TARDIS around the girl in the Dalek shell one instant before the planet explodes. “Sorry to interrupt your noble tragic gesture and all that,” he starts. “But I need information. Hello, I’m the Doctor. Yes, him.” He nods toward where bowtie-and-tweed was already fleeing the scene.

“What. The. Hell!” Oswin snaps, and her anger trips the gunstick, searing a scar into the floor of the console room. Not long on gratitude, he notes. “In case you weren’t paying attention, that wasn’t me being left to die. That was me choosing to die with my humanity intact.”

“Don’t worry,” the Doctor tells her dryly. “I’ve got a friend, Rusty, who will do a good job of reminding you just how human you are. But it might take some time to track him down. So, tell me about yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! You didn't expect this was also going to be an Asylum of the Daleks fix-it, did you? 
> 
> Also, this is the first story to really be out of order, but it only comes slightly later in the Doctor's timeline. He's still very much trying to get a sense of who Clara was and what she meant to him.


	7. Conceptual Space, a Tearoom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing the TARDIS and the Diner

It, of course, goes without saying that two dimensionally-transcendent space-time-ships do not talk in the same way that most lifeforms (the kind with boring, finite bodies) do. They do not eat, or drink, or sit, or stand. All of this is perfectly true.

And yet it is just as true that the first time that the Doctor's TARDIS met Clara's TARDIS, she invited the younger model over for tea. 

“Please,” she began. “Make yourself comfortable. Call me Idris,” for of course she had had the slight advantage of having had a human body, if only for a short time. “And what is your name?” she continued, when the other did not immediately speak.

The younger woman's eyes brighten. “I'm called the TARDIS!” She clasps her hands above the large, round belt-buckle of her white dress. “Traditional American Retro Diner In Space,” she recites. 

Idris blinks, tea halfway to her mouth. “Not Time And Relative Dimensions In Space?” Probably rude, she thinks. Oh well. 

“Oh, no,” the girl laughs. “What a very silly name.” Definitely rude, Idris thinks, and scowls into her tea. 

“What about a nickname?” she offers diplomatically.

This puzzles the ruder TARDIS for quite some time. “They call me the Diner, sometimes,” she offers.

“Dinah, then?”

She stirs her tea thoughtfully. “Oh, yes,” she says with a start. “That will do!” She beams. “Now we have names; now we can talk.” She drizzles more honey into the tea; a long, almost pungent silence. “What shall we talk about? I really haven't the faintest idea, you know. I still feel so empty inside.”

Idris looks at the chattering girl, still in her factory-issue roundels, and laughs. “Oh, let me tell you a story; I have so many, after all...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure I'm not the first person to assign the Diner an alternative definition of TARDIS, but what can you do.


	8. The Bank of Karabraxos, ruins

He sets the TARDIS to orbit the ruined bank. The solar flares had wiped the facility nearly clean off the map. Once virtually impenetrable, now just a heap of slag, gnarled, grey, and void of the treasures it had once guarded so jealously. He sighed. You didn't need to be an English teacher (why did that sound familiar?) to spot an obvious metaphor like that. 

Still, he mused, there were little traces, little snatches of memory sneaking through, like drops of quicksilver scattered from a Pensieve. (He really needed to go back and show J.K. one of those.) Sometimes they rose unbidden, other times they needed triggers to set them off. Other times, like now: without me, without me, without me, echoed over and over in his head. Something she had said. “Yes, boss,” he says to no-one in particular.

“Hm?” Psi asks. 

“I forgot her,” he says at last.

“Clara?” The surprise is evident in his voice. The Doctor hadn’t told him why he needed his help, but for some reason he’d jumped at the chance. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”

“I already told you; I forgot her.” He frowns. “You forgot your family.”

“Because I loved them,” he replies with a shrug.

“I suppose there could be other reasons.” He turns away from the vista. “What was she like?”

Psi runs his fingers over his hair. “Brave, and caring.” He blows through his lips. “I honestly didn’t know her very well, or very long.” He holds out a hand to mid-chest. “Not very tall, brown hair and eyes. Pretty, if you like that sort of thing.” The Doctor snorts. “That’s about it, really.” He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. “What did you want me for?”

“I’m looking for her.” His eyes twinkle. “Kind of think I shouldn’t be. So, you in?”

The augmented man walks over to the console, where the Doctor is already plugging in coordinates. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” he apologizes. “But I’ve got my own family to find, thanks to the two of you. I’ve got parents, grandparents, two brothers, a favorite aunt.”He laughs sheepishly. “A month ago, I didn’t have anyone, and now I’ve got a _favorite aunt!_ ” 

The Doctor moves around so his back is to Psi. “Back you go, then.” It’s almost a question. The doors open. “It was good to see you.” This isn’t a lie; always forward can be boring in its own way. “I hope you find them.”

“And I hope you find her.” He makes a little wave with his fingers, and he is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of going for a sideways nod to King Pellinore and the Questing Beast here: Psi is on a quest to recover his forgotten family, obviously paralleling the Doctor, in the same way that Pellinore's hunt for the Questing Beast prefigures the Grail quest. Psi's favorite aunt probably doesn't make a sound like thirty couple of hounds, though.


	9. Kelivar, New Year's Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance almost-meeting; the spark that strikes the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone knows the canon name of the planet with the hundred-year-long new year celebration, let me know.

They've gone back to Kelivar because the new year's party is still going strong and hey, Clara thinks, maybe she can find another pair of sunglasses. Pretty sure her dignity is irrecoverable, but maybe she can take someone else’s.

That's when she sees him. Grey hair. Red velvet. Alone.

She hadn't expected to see him again. Ever. He'd shown her some small fraction of how uncountably vast the universe was, for one. For two… for two, they never seemed to run into any of his old traveling companions. And he'd as much as said—inasmuch has he ever revealed anything—that this was a conscious choice on his part.

“Miss? Miss, are you okay?” A young man shook her by the shoulder. “Do you need to see the Doctor?”

“Yes,” she said suddenly, turning away before he spotted her, “but not now.” Oh, God, did she need to _see_ him, but not like this, not random and unplanned like this, not when she was falling apart just at the sight of him.

The young man looks even more concerned. “Did they drug you, miss? You drink something?”

“I'm perfectly fine,” she lies. “But thank you.” She smiles at him, a quick, false thing, and makes a beeline for her TARDIS. Her hands shake and she shoves them into her pockets. All the need, all the desire, all the love came flooding back into her. She'd almost forced herself to forget. Well, so much for going our separate ways.


	10. The Diner's workshop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, everyone's favorite bisexual ladies in space make their appearance.

Me and Clara often went days without seeing much of one another, even if they didn't leave their TARDIS. Neither of them wanted to grow sick of the only person they were likely to spend a very long time with.

Me had, in fact, spent a very relaxing few days cultivating a garden before seeking Clara out, finally finding her in what they had dubbed the workshop, bent over a small piece of metal, staring at it through the sonic sunglasses. (Clara had taken them when they had left the Doctor, though she still felt the urge for a sonic of her own.)

“What have you got there?” she asks, genuinely curious. “Looks like one of our TARDIS keys.”

“It started out that way,” Clara says, holding up the brass key. “But one time the Doctor told me a story about a trick he had done to turn one of them into a perception filter; I’m trying to replicate the effect.”

“Perception filter?” Me barks a laugh. “ _That_ takes me back to 1966.”

“Hopefully,” Clara continues, undaunted, “it will keep people from noticing that I don't have a pulse. And I _think_ it will keep time-sensitive people from paying too much attention to me.” She threads the key onto a chain on her neck, where it clinks against a silver key.

“How does it do that?”

“It taps into the TARDIS's telepathic circuits and alters how people see me, just slightly. It won't have any effect on you, because you know what to look for.”

“And the other key...” she rests a finger on the metal, just above Clara's breasts. “That's his, isn't it?” 

Clara nods. “Couldn't bear to give it up.” Still thinks, some days, that one of these days will be Wednesday.

“And it's still linked to his TARDIS, then?” The light starts to dawn on Clara.

“Which means we could use it to track his TARDIS!” Clara shouts. Me raises her sardonic mask and tries not to feel too much like chopped liver. “Oh, Me, I could just about kiss you!”

“Why don't you?” she asks, just a whiff of bitterness creeping into her voice. Because you're still gone on the Doctor, she answers her own question. Still, in fact, wearing one of his jumpers while you work.

She is so consumed by this thought that she doesn't see the emotions shuffling across Clara's face. In fact, she almost misses the lips coming up to graze hers. She blinks in rare surprise. “I should have done that sooner,” Clara murmurs.

“Yes,” Me replies, and takes advantage of the inches Clara gives up to her sitting down to snog her right back. She can smell the dirt under her fingernails as she cups Clara's face, can smell her perfume. She might be intoxicated. She might like it. She grins.


	11. Route 66, USA, 1950s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara and Me go to a diner. Just for research purposes. Totally not a date. Nothing to see here.

“Well, I've looked over everything in the manual, and the chameleon circuit is _still_ broken.” She stands, hands greasy, and looks at the troublesome device.

“So we're stuck as a diner.” Me shrugs. “Trifle conspicuous.”

“Nah, retro's always in. We can just pretend to be an actual diner.” 

“Clara?” Me asks, tucked against the taller woman.

“Mm?”

“Have you ever been to a Fifties diner?”

Clara hesitates. The closest the Doctor had taken her to the 1950s was when they had hooked up with Marilyn Monroe. “Well, no.”

“Why don't we remedy that?”

Three stops and two foiled invasions later, they finally track down an actual, honest-to-god, not even slightly ironic diner, all red leather and chrome. Elvis Presley is singing on the radio and the waitress, a crisp-looking girl, hands them a pair of menus.

“What can I get you?” she asks, voice bubbly.

“What do you recommend?” Clara asks. Just like traveling with the Doctor, she thinks. Blend in, nice and smooth.

“You're not from here, are you?” So much for blending in, Clara thinks as the waitress rattles off some recommendations. The waitress—Doris, her nametag says—laughs. “My brother married an English girl—he was a navigator on a B-24 in the war. Brought her back with him.” 

“Just visiting,” Me says before Doris tries to peg them as war brides.

“Golly, how lovely! Well, might as well give you the whole experience. Frankie,” she calls to the chef, “Two cheeseburgers and two chocolate shakes for the two English birds.” She turns back to Clara and Me. “So, going on a roadtrip, huh? Route 66 and all that?” She tilts her head towards the highway outside. “Speaking of which,” she says as a car pulls up. “I'll be back with your food,” she tells them, clicking away.

“Roller skates.” Even the usually jaded Me is impressed. “Oh, we have got to get some of those.”

“You just think I'd look cute in a carhop's uniform.”

“No,” Me corrects her, “I know you'd look cute in a carhop's uniform.” They clasp hands as Nat King Cole starts to sing “Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup,” which causes the TARDIS translation circuits to have fits inside their heads, but they just smile as the song plays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact #1: my late great-uncle was a navigator on a B-24 during WW2, so this chapter goes out to him. Did not marry a European gal, though.
> 
> Fun fact #2: Apparently "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup" is not just sung in a mix of English and French, it's sung in a mix of English and really bad French. The translation circuits have just gone home and taken their ball with them.


	12. Roller Rink, USA, 1950s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crash!..

Somehow they land the Diner _inside_ a roller rink, after-hours; Me thinks the level of Fifties kitsch might reach the singularity point. “Come on,” Clara laughs, and turns on one light—just enough to keep from tripping. 

They find skates that fit, and moments later they are stumbling out onto the hardwood. “My god,” Clara giggles, “Something I actually have more experience at than you.” 

“What, one time?” Me snarks, and falls onto her ass. 

“At least we don't have far to fall.” Clara helps her back up. “Slow and steady,” she says. “First one foot, then the other.” She takes Me by the hand, trying to stabilize her, and winds up face-to-face with the shorter girl. Instinctively, she kisses her forehead as they circle around. 

“Should probably keep our clothes on,” Me gasps as they kiss, “if only to pad our falls.” 

“Just so long there isn't a pervy old security guard to give a show.”

“Oh? I thought creepy older men were your taste.”

Clara whirls away from Me. “How. Dare. You.”

“Sore subject then?” Me asks, losing her balance. “I may have deserved that.” 

“First off, the Doctor is not a creep. Second, that is not my type. I don't have a type. I am in complete control of my desires. I just have a very healthy libido and a mutually open relationship with the man who is probably my soulmate.” She glares at Me. “All those years and you haven’t picked up a jot of emotional sensitivity.”

Me hisses, and tries to clamber back to her feet. Tries, and fails, and Clara looms over her. “I get it,” she says to the unspoken question.

“Good,” Clara says simply, and skates away.


	13. TARDIS wine cellar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why, the Doctor wondered, was there a chalkboard in the wine cellar?

He knows the Old Girl moves things from time to time: hallways, rooms, even individual items. Moves them in completely unpredictable ways to completely unpredictable places. So that probably explains why there is a chalkboard in the wine cellar. 

It does not explain what is _written_ on the chalkboard. 

“Question: what is this? Answer: a grid of names, including my own and Clara’s (he’d finally just broken down and asked one of the pudding brains) categorized into ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ and ‘Ask.’” He feels like he should be talking to someone else. Probably her, he expects. He tries to puzzle out what sort of context would allow this to make sense.

“Next question: who made this? Conjecture: myself, judging by the familiarity of some of the handwriting, and Clara.” Mm, he had forgotten how nice her name feels in his mouth: the bite of the ‘C,’ the roll of the ‘R.’ “Clara, Clara,” he echoes to himself. “My Clara” rises unbidden to his lips. “My Clara, indeed,” he murmurs, bending to peer more closely at her tidy script. Still learning little details about her, he thinks, not daring to touch the words lest he efface them. Even the scent of the chalk fails to slake his curiosity.

“So,” he recites, hair so fluffed out it nearly grazes the chalkboard, “categorized lists of names, some more familiar, others less: whatever a ‘David Beckham’ is. One for me and one for her. About as much idea as what they’re for as the room filled with nothing but packs of spearmint gum.” He sighs. He takes a step back, sees a bottle of red wine which wasn’t there before. “1986 wasn’t even a good year for Shiraz. Not helping.” He looks around, but apparently that is all the help the TARDIS is willing to provide. He mulls over what he has learned as he leaves.


	14. The Doctor's bedroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara is very organized about her negotiations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set pre-Raven.

“And to think I wasn't sure if you'd fancy this face,” the Doctor observes, a little out of breath and for the best of reasons.

“I'd want you no matter what you looked like,” Clara informs him.

“And I you,” the Doctor vows.

Clara snorts. “Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the sentiment. But Doctor, you're so heterosexual the Master regenerated into a woman.”

The Doctor buries his face in a pillow. “I never,” he moans.

“Damn right,” Clara says. “She tried to get you to kill me. She actually killed Osgood. Oh, and she turned Danny into a Cyberman. She's on your 'no' list.”

“I have a 'no' list?” But Clara is already up, out of bed, and bounding over to one of the ubiquitous chalkboards. He watches as she draws a grid of boxes: “Doctor,” “Clara” going down, and “Yes,” “Ask,” “No” going across. She writes “Missy” in the “Doctor-No” box. “Anybody you want in the 'Yes' box? Other than me.”

“I am married to Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth I, and River Song,” the Doctor says, standing to add their names.

Clara nods, and writes River's name in her 'Ask' box. “What about that Viking girl? She was cute.” Fight you for her, she thinks with a laugh. Or maybe we can talk her into sharing, she thinks as he weighs the concept and nods, intrigued. “Can I have Jane Austen?”

“Didn't you already?” he chuckles. 

“Well, yes.” She licks her lips. “Really, that should have been a clue for you.”

“About the polyamory?”

“About you! Come on, beautiful, willful heroine romanced by cranky older gentleman. Who does that sound like?”

“Well, when you put it like that.” He thinks he manages coy. “Yes, I suppose you can have Jane.”

So, he thinks. Negotiating an open arrangement is a thing we do now. He adds this to a mental list which includes kissing, hugging, shagging, and sharing a bedroom.


	15. Jane Austen's Bath

Where the dickens was Clara? he asked himself. (Note to self, he thinks: try Dickens next.) He’d sussed out that she liked Jane Austen very well--make of that what you like. So it only stood to reason that she’d be somewhere in Bath during the writer’s career.

But he’d been all over the twee little town half a dozen times. Had even bumped into Ms. Austen once or twice, tall and glowering, but whenever he’d tried to say something to her she would only run off as if distracted. Something about inspiration. Well, who could tell what these writerly types were thinking.

He shook his head. Perhaps it was time to follow another lead.


	16. Jane Austen's bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Splish, splash...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

Between Me and the Doctor, Clara has learned a few things about moving quietly. She creeps through the old house, alone. Almost completely alone, in fact, apart from a humming and splashing from upstairs. Not even a servant girl--not that there was anything wrong with the odd servant girl. Clara grins.

Yes, she observes, that is definitely her quarry, basking in the tub. She strips off, takes a moment to admire herself--still got it, Oswald!--and closes in, hands over the bathing woman’s eyes.

“Clara!”

“Jane!” She presses a kiss to her forehead. “You sound more pleased than surprised.” She is a trifle disappointed.

“My dearest Clara, you did warn me you were coming.” She curls damp fingers into Clara’s hair. “How else would I have known to send everyone else away? Or to have used your favorite scent of soap?” She smiles a sad smile as the older woman crowds into the bathtub. “My jasmine days. I am afraid they are growing fewer and fewer.”

“Nothing lasts forever.” She presses a kiss to Jane’s cheek.

“Not even you?” Jane draws her into a long kiss. “You don’t have to be--what was it you called me? The greatest social observer of my time,” Clara blushes, “to see that every time I see you, you have not aged a day, and yet you stole your first kiss from me when I was but a girl of fifteen--” Oops, Clara thinks. Well, that’s one to look forward to, in a manner of speaking. “--and now here I am, nearly a spinster.”

“Especially not me,” Clara says. Her voice abruptly changes from wistful to lurid. “And that I why I plan to spend as much of that time shagging Jane Austen rotten in the bath.” Jane blushes but lets her hand slide down to Clara’s hip. 

“And then maybe we could go for a walk and catch up?” Clara was going to tell Jane all about _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies_ being made into a movie, but now she finds she hasn’t the heart.

Clara nods excitedly. “You’ll have to clue me in on the gossip; I swear, this stuff is better than soap operas. You can tell me all about it over a cherry coke.” That, she knew, was a thing from the future that Jane wholeheartedly enjoyed.

“Jasmine days and cherry nights,” Jane pronounces, and then there is no speaking for a while.


	17. Clara's library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor searches for clues in Clara's flat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, sorry, I had to slice places like Clara's flat pretty fine to do 101 different places.

He isn’t sure what to expect. The usual pudding-brain trash, probably, assuming she even has books. But he is pleasantly surprised by her collection. Jane Austen, of course. A few that make him smile; one that makes him cry. He tears two pages from a student’s workbook (She was a teacher? Yes, that sounds familiar, somehow.) and copies down every title and every author in the little library. So little it was more an alcove than a proper room.

Pictures as well, though he doesn’t see any of her. Perhaps that’s what all the mirrors are for. He doesn’t recall her being a practitioner of feng shui; he snorts: the original art, practiced by the Utrescans of Caliban Beta, was nearly lost to the corruption of the ages. Hardly anything left of worth, but mirrors were certainly things of power.

He frowns, then stops as it is reflected back at him four-fold. Idly, he pockets a crystal paperweight, almost without realizing he has done so. He peers at the shelf as if it will offer up any more secrets, tugs on the books in case it happens to conceal a hidden chamber or passageway. (You don’t spend as much time as he has in ancient castles and mad scientists’ lairs without picking up a few habits.) But even the sonic sunglasses reveal nothing more interesting than a thin layer of dust. 

Dead skin, he thinks morbidly. The last traces of the deceased. And not enough DNA to be useful. He sighs and leaves the little library.


	18. The Library no-fly zone

“Seriously, you have a ship that can take you anywhere in the universe, and you’re using it so that you can place a hold on a book?”

Clara is about to mount an impassioned defense of the book when something catches her eye on the console. “We’ve gone a lot further in the past...What’s this, then? Some kind of notice?”

“Is it closed, then?” Me does her best not to sound too excited. 

“You could say that.” Clara skims the recording, reading off words as they jump out at her. “Quarantined. Vashta Nerada.” They shudder. “Hang on, River Song?” Me cocks a curious eyebrow at her as Clara explains. “Friend of the Doctor’s. Met her once--I think. Timelines a bit fuzzy and I think I’ve got a spot of amnesia. Can't quite remember what she looks like.” Me nods her understanding. “Killed while doing something extremely complicated with the teleport system, rescuing over four thousand people in the process.”

“Whoa.” Me blinks. “Hell of a way to go.” She mimes a toast to the dead woman’s memory. “Not, you know, making sure the fabric of reality stays intact.”

“Flatterer.” Clara brushes her away. But she cannot help but think that now they have sealed River’s fate, at least as concerns themselves. “Come on, let’s go someplace else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of time-jumping in this chapter and the next two, just so you're warned.


	19. Berlin, 1938

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the hell; you've got a time machine, I've got a biodata scanner: let's save River Song.

Clara thinks she’s starting to piece River’s life together, slowly but surely, between the few hints the woman has dropped in their brief acquaintance and stories the Doctor had told her. (Let’s just say they had spent a lot of time locked up together.) And her being who she is, this means that she’s also making plans. 

“Remind me again why we’re doing this.” Ash grouses, hand on the biodata scanner at her belt holster.

“Because she’s trapped in the Library mainframe.”

“Which is filled with meat-eating shadows.”

“So we wait until they’ve died out,” Clara retorts. 

“ _Please_ tell me you haven’t just dragged me into this just to make the Doctor happy.”

She smirks. “You looked pretty happy last night.”

“Not answering my question.” 

“Sure, that’s part of it. I know his timeline is too entangled with hers, but ours isn’t, not yet. But mostly I want to help her for her own sake. Come on, we just need to find her before she uses up all her regeneration energy.”

“Or before the Nazis kill us.” Clara is about to respond when she spots a familiar golden glow. “Off we go, then.”

River looks a bit feral as they sprint to catch up with her. “What do you want?” She snaps. “Couple of Time Agents?” She wonders, seeing Ash scan her. 

“Friends. From your future.” Clara moves closer to her.

“Do we end up sleeping together? I do hope so. Shall we paint the town red first?” Her guard lowered, Clara darts in and jabs her with the sample collector. “The hell was that for?”

“You’ll thank me later.”

“Time to go,” Ash interrupts, hearing a motorbike approach. “Ciao, gorgeous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you keeping score at home, Ash and Me are the same person at different points in her timeline. Keep that in mind for the next chapter.


	20. The Library

“All of time and space and you want to go to a library,” Me grumps.

“ _The_ Library,” Clara corrects her. “A whole planet full of books.”

“And when you could actually experience something instead of reading about it?” 

Clara just rolls her eyes, and Me knows her well enough by now to know to let the matter drop. She walks over to the nearest terminal and searches for the book she wants. “You’re kidding!” Her eyes pop. “I’d have to put a hold _when_?” She asks the dead air. “Let’s go.” She grabs Me and drags her back onto the Diner.

In the planet’s food court, the patrons wondering if the Diner is a new vendor or a historical exhibit are very surprised when it whooshes out of existence. Fifteen minutes pass. The air stills. The traditional hush settles back in. People settle back into their usual routines. Then, in the same space, the same Diner flickers back into being. “Don’t mind us,” Clara says, flashing a sheet of psychic paper. 

“Engineering division,” Ash adds to the overwrought functionary before them. “Here to inspect your mainframe.” She pushes a cart of electronic equipment.

“Just take us to the root node.” Clara pushes the sonic sunglasses up her nose, pure bluff. Twenty minutes later they are alone in a locked storeroom with River’s biological data, a DNA sample, a copy of her memories, and a cloning device borrowed from deep in the Diner. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Ash completes the necessary startup procedures, and the cloning tank hums to life. “Seriously?” she asks Clara, who is reading the book she went to such lengths to borrow.

“Nothing better to do.” Ash rolls her eyes and watches as River knits back into physical form.

The minutes tick past, summoning bone, muscle, nerve. “Uploading consciousness now,” Ash announces. Seconds later she pales. Clara drops her book. “She’s going into critical; she’s waking up!” River pounds at the tank, her atrophied muscles too weak to open the hatch. “I’ll see if I can stabilize her.”

“We have to get her out,” Clara shouts, springing the catch manually. “The stress is killing her.”

“Get down!” Ash cries, realizing what that means and flinging herself at Clara just as golden fire streams from each fingertip, each curl of hair. The flames sear a crease down Ash’s back, and her head hits the floor. 

Clara coughs and checks Ash’s pulse: steady. She’ll recover. She nods and inspects River’s vitals, and consciously breathes a sigh of relief when she feels the familiar double beat. 

It takes her some doing, but she works the tank, Ash, and River into the Diner. She tucks Ash into bed to let the healing coma do its work. But for River...she looks at the petite, dark-haired face, thinks it looks a little young but familiar. She swallows and rematerializes the Diner. 

“Welcome to the Church, dear sister,” offers the acolyte. “May we assist you?” 

“I have someone who’s going to need some time to get back on her feet,” Clara hedges, helping out a semi-conscious River. “But I think she’ll go far with your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trust me, I was as surprised as you are when I discovered this was going to be a Library fix-it.


	21. 13 Paternoster Row, London, 1898

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor meets with Vastra and Jenny, but they aren't who he's looking for...

Vastra rises from her deshabille and her ennui as she hears a familiar sound. “Come, Jenny; it appears an old friend has need of us.” She slips on a robe, more for the warmth than the need to conceal herself from the Doctor; she doubted the mountain range would even notice, but Jenny might mind if she tested her theory. 

“Fast as I can, Madame.” Jenny cusses as she hurriedly tugs trousers up over bare skin. This had best be important.

“Doctor!” Vastra greets the Time Lord with arms wide. “Are you well? And have you forgotten Clara?”

Jenny arrives just in time to see the Doctor clap his hands on her wife’s shoulders. “ _How did you know?_ ” he asks, eyes wild. “I know you’re the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes and all,” he continues as Jenny politely escorts him to an armchair, “but that’s ruddy impressive.”

“If I may,” Jenny offers, “what Madame was insinuating was that, as you usually travel with Miss Oswald, you might have mislaid her. But seeing as you reacted rather strongly to her question, perhaps we might discuss matters over tea. Specifically as to how _exactly_ you managed to forget your best friend.”

“If you like,” the Doctor says, his calm regained. “But I thought you might appreciate it if I moved on. Don’t want to interrupt.” He lays a finger alongside his nose, then points to the missed button on Jenny’s waistcoat. The woman scowls, but fixes her outfit. “And actually, I was hoping you could introduce me to Arthur Conan Doyle; you see…”

Jenny doesn’t let him finish. “Strax, shoot him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows on the heels of the Doctor's trip to Bath.


	22. Manhattan, 1957

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something tells me chapter 11 might not be her favorite anymore...

Finally, she gets to the head of the line, book clutched in her hands. “Ms. Williams? It’s an honor to meet you, really, really pleased. I mean, I know _Summer Falls_ is a bit of a kids’ book, and really, I suppose I am a bit old for it--you wouldn’t believe, actually--but it was one of my favorites growing up.”

“You might be surprised at what I’d believe,” Williams replies. “Also, you’re babbling.” Clara blushes and stammers, but Williams just signs the book, then stops, and after a silence, adds a note.

“Done now?” Me asks at the front of the bookshop. There is only so much drifting from shelf to shelf looking bored one can do before it becomes tiresome.

“Just because you don’t have a favorite childhood author who just happened to be doing a book signing at a convenient set of time-space coordinates doesn’t mean you get to rain on my parade.”

Me quirks a smile. “Yes, I could hear you babbling like an idiot from--” Clara interrupts her with a gasp.

“She wants to meet up after the book signing!” She positively bounces.

“Terrific. I am going to find a bar and get wasted to the greatest extent possible given the goddamn alien tech purging my veins of toxins with ruthless efficiency. You have fun.”

Clara just rolls her eyes and tries to remember who’s published what in 1957 so she can snag first editions on the cheap. 

An hour later she has _On The Road_ , _Pnin_ , and _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ (but decidedly not _Atlas Shrugged_ ) tucked tidily into a bag, and Amelia Williams sitting opposite her.

“You’re from the future,” Williams states bluntly. Clara stammers and tries to invent a lie that will satisfy her. Williams just rolls her eyes. “Please; it’s 1957, and that’s the 1994 edition. Give me a little credit.” Clara just blushes. Williams leans in. “Guess what: me too!” She winks at Clara. “Call me Amelia. So, how’d you get here?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I stole a time machine from the planet Gallifrey and ran away?”

Amelia’s eyes bulge. “You’re _him_? Look at you, you’re adorable! Wait until Rory sees you! But Doctor, I thought you couldn’t come back, with the Angels and everything?”

Clara giggles. “Oh my God, you think I’m the Doctor!” She claps her hands over her mouth. “That’s hysterical!” She puts two and two together. “Did you travel with him, too?”

Amelia nods, and they share their stories.


	23. Pera Palace Hotel, Istanbul, 1933

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor follows another literary lead...

He rubs the battered copy of _A Mysterious Affair at Styles_ like a talisman. This was his last lead from her bookshelf that he could follow, and then it was back to searching the galaxies at random.

“Jelly baby?” he offers. “I don’t suppose you can help me find someone, Ms. Christie?”

“I’m awfully sorry, but I’m not actually a detective.” She glances down at the book in his hand and flatters him with a smile; she probably thinks I’m an idiot fan, he realizes. “Do I know you, Mr…?”

“Doctor. And yes, we met briefly but I don’t expect you remember me.”

“No, I am afraid not; neither your name nor your face rings a bell.” Another polite smile. “If you will excuse me?” she asks, and reluctantly he lets her go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this is where & when she is writing Murder on the Orient Express. The events of The Wasp and The Unicorn took place in 1926.


	24. Malone's Astropub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara makes a...friend. Let's go with friend.

“So, Clara, your place or mine?”

“Mine, I think,” Clara blushes into her drink. “I...may not have been completely up-front with you.”

“Oh?” the toned blonde asks.

“I kind of have a...thing,” Clara chews her lip; she’s never really thought about her relationship with the Doctor is before, “with a guy, and I should _really_ at least run you by him first.”

Jenny raises an eyebrow, then empties her glass. “Sure,” she says, checking the stunner and the brass knuckles secreted within her belt. “Why not?”

They have a round for the road, and then a tipsy Clara is tugging Jenny into the TARDIS. “Hello?” she calls, meandering down the corridors. “Where are you?”

“Clara?” comes the return hail. “Clara!” They finally reunite in a salle. Clara fondly remembers learning the sword here...among other things. Jenny admires the breadth of the collection of weaponry. Which means neither of them notice the way the Doctor’s face freezes when he walks in.

“There you are,” Clara says fondly. “Anyway, I found a total cutie, says she’s down for a threesome if you are.”

“Clara, I don’t think that would be wise.”

“What?” she asks in disbelief. “It’s not like you were complaining last month with that tentacled blob thing. Try everything but folk dancing and incest, right, Doctor? And, actually, we did some folk dancing with the Vikings. I mean, we’ve even gotten married; how weird is that?”

The Doctor coughs. “About that…”

“Hello, dad.” Jenny giggles. “So, how’s mom?”

“Oh.” Clara’s nose wrinkles. “Ew. Sorry. Let’s brew some coffee and sober up and we can do the whole family reunion thing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An astropub is like a gastropub, but in space.


	25. Retirement home, Chiswick, 2050s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows, now, what a horrible thing it is to forget.

He knows, now, what a horrible thing it is to forget, and she is old now, ginger no more, perhaps some trace of the metacrisis keeping her alive. Easy enough to undo this sort of thing for someone else, he thinks. 

Then it hits him. Koschei, of course. If he could trust her. 

But first, he thinks, he needs to trust himself to do what he couldn't let himself do those many years ago, a lifetime ago for both of them.

“I asked myself, when I first saw it, why I gave myself this face,” he remarks. 

“Have you been to a plastic surgeon's, mate?” she chides him, all spunk even now. “Because you might want a refund.”

“I realized, later, that I wanted to hold myself to the mark. To _your_ mark.”

“Pal, I've never...” Donna stops, because she _has_ seen him before, in a manner of speaking.

“You knew what you wanted, knew far better than I. And I took that choice away from you.” 

“Doctor,” she murmurs, and despite the pain wracking her head, she isn't calling for help. He reaches down and clasps her hand. “Thank you,” she manages, dentures gritted.

“Goodbye, Donna Noble.” His other hand reaches up to brush the papery skin of her cheek. He stays until she is gone. Blessedly, she is not in pain for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry.
> 
> I'm not tagging this as a Journey's End fix-it because she still has to live her whole life without her memories/character growth.


	26. Skaro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, where was the last place you remember seeing her?..

The doggedly rational part of his brain realizes how desperate he is getting: landing on the homeworld of his oldest enemy so that he can find his oldest friend-turned-enemy just so that he can have a chance at remembering Clara Oswald in the fullness she deserves. 

The rest of him steps out onto Skaro with glad hearts. 

The grit of the wasteland blasts him; the stink of dying Daleks fills his nostrils. Not altogether unpleasurable, he thinks with a grin. Good, he’s timed it just right--there should still be traces of the Mistress and enough chaos that he can move about unmolested.

...Relatively unmolested, he amends, slamming the TARDIS doors shut just ahead of a squawking squadron of Daleks. He skitters giddily over to the console and uploads the data from her transmat signature. “Where to next, old girl?..”


	27. Omicron Cluster, Vandemeer Delta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor isn't the only one looking for someone. It's a big galaxy, after all.

River has other hobbies: archaeology and larceny, to name a few, and not even (usually) at the same time. And she has other loves and other spouses—and there's even some overlap between the two. But when you and your old man are both time travelers, you have to make an effort to carve out some couple time before you both get lost in the corners of the galaxy. So she just can't help herself when she hears a rumor that might be about the Doctor. She just has to go look, whether it winds up as a footnote in her dissertation or a booty call (or both. Usually both if she can manage it.). 

So she follows, giddily, a rumor of a mysterious flying box, complete with its short, clever pilot. She wonders whether it'll be his second face or his seventh—she hasn't seen much of them, but it's nice to have a few inches on him for a change. 

She gets to the source of the rumor a day late, but she can still see his handiwork all over the planet. Well, she thinks, at least she can take some notes for her dissertation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over a quarter of the way in (!) and this is our first taste of River Song (?!).
> 
> This is kind-of/sort-of my headcanon for her--yeah, she spends a lot of time chasing after the Doctor, because if she doesn't, they'll literally never see each other, especially once she's out of Stormcage. Unless the TARDIS feels like arranging a booty call, probably.


	28. New Luzerne, Omicron Cluster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So they've saved the world and Clara wants a shag. Old habits die hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is relatively early for them--first shag, at any rate. Explicit, by the way.

The light stings her eyes as they sprint out into a meadow, the mines collapsing behind them. Clara kisses her, hard and fast and happy, so excited she wouldn't be breathing anyway. Her hands go up and catch on the buttons of Me's blouse. She blushes, but Me just looks at her. “D'you…?” Me nods. 

So what if they're out in public, Me thinks. They just saved the world, which makes them entitled to a celebratory fuck. A world full of blind, cave-dwelling aliens, as it happens, so if she eats out her girlfriend on a sunny patch of grass, nobody will be the wiser. She kisses back and helps Clara with the buttons. Clara pulls her jumper off, then gapes.

“Quit catching flies,” she teases. “Come on, I know you've seen your fair share of naked girls.”

“Yeah, but,” she gives her breasts a disappointed squeeze, “I didn't think you'd have a nicer set of tits than me.” She sits on the sward in a huff.

“It balances out,” Me says, cupping Clara lovingly, letting cool breath blow on her nipples. “My hands are smaller.” She grins and pushes Clara onto her back. “But no less talented.” She reaches up under Clara's skirt and tugs off her panties and her tights. “We, of all people, could take this slow,” she muses.

“I think we've waited long enough,” Clara says as Me unzips her jeans, leaving them on but letting Clara see her brown curls. Clara grins approvingly and leans back, one hand under her head. “So, is this one of the many skills you've mastered?” she asks. 

But Me's head is already under Clara's skirt. Not yet, she thinks. I’ve only just started to learn the art of Clara Oswald. But, she muses, cataloguing the moan that results from a fraction more pressure, I have time to learn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pennsylvania coal country shout-out!


	29. Omicron Cluster, Systems Communications Hub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River's following a lead. Quirky time traveler? Yes. The Doctor?...

It becomes clear that this isn't just one rumor, but a whole series of them, more or less interconnected, like threads into a yarn. She's seen it before, coalescing around his faces, usually. This time they've been moving from planet to planet within a star cluster, blowing up injustice as they find it. She smiles with approval and heads to the main communications center of the cluster to track her darling husband. (A broadcast of a gymnastics competition catches her eye as she skims through news feeds; maybe she could make a little detour.)

She thinks this one might be his second face for a while. There's the short sneaky one and the short clever one but they're distinctly short on tall Scottish idiots for that to work. But, she thinks, maybe Jamie is just lying low.

But then she starts seeing patterns, deep patterns, as the chaos moves from one planet to the next, zigzagging through time as well as space. And bless him, but his second face was more of a vigilante than a long-range planner. Not to mention he wasn’t nearly good enough at guiding the TARDIS yet. 

No, she thinks, this is more his seventh face’s speed. And the early reports suggest that he’s accompanied by a violent teenager, which matches perfectly.

But the more she learns, the less certain she becomes. She frowns as she skims through news reports and historical archives. Some of the details don’t quite line up. Too much romantic tension and too many dresses for his second face. Not enough umbrellas or question marks for the seventh. Still, she thinks, it must be him: who else could it be?


	30. Space Station Demeter, 6830s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's so fine, she blows...a hole in the side of the space station, actually.

Typical, he thinks. Whenever he doesn’t want her around, she’s conspiring with his least favorite enemies to invade Earth. But the moment he would actually like to see her wretched face, the Mistress is nowhere to be found. 

He finally tracks her psychotic Mary Poppins shtick to an abandoned space station. He gives her the charitable assumption that she wasn’t responsible for it being abandoned. “So,” she begins imperiously. “You’ve finally come to beg me to take you back. I accept, not that you deserve it.”

“I…” He stops and almost leaves. So close now, he thinks. And he still has the neural block so that he can shove this memory far, far away. “I need your help.”

Missy’s eyes go wide and she skips around him. “Oo-hoo!” she chirps. “You know, I think I might wet myself with excitement. Or maybe this body is just middle-aged. It’s so hard to tell. You? Need my help?” She laughs. “Well, go on, what do you need?”

“I need you to reverse a neural block.” 

She frowns. “Is that it? I thought it was going to be something fun. Or at least something in it for me.” She traces a finger down the line of buttons of his shirt. He scowls at her and she huffs away and down a silver passageway.

“What do you know about the Hybrid?” he calls after her. She stops as still as he is. 

“Oh, you bad, bad boy,” Missy purrs. “Well, go on; we haven’t got all day.” She wrinkles her nose. “Literally; this place could depressurize at any minute. Suppose I should have been a teensy bit more careful on my way in.” Well, so much for hope, he thinks.

“I’ve heard a fairly convincing theory that I am one-half of the Hybrid.” He pauses for effect. “And the other half is the person whom I have wiped from my memory.”

Missy frowns. “Oh, it’s not your pet, is it? I think I might drown that little puppy, just for the look in those big brown eyes.”

“There is the ruin of a billion hearts to consider,” the Doctor offers earnestly.

Her lips twist. “Mm, but that’s only a half-billion Time Lords. We’ve done worse.” She holds the thought just long enough for him to begin to despair. “Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’ll help you, you big baby. Just remember, you owe me a favor.”

“I’m letting you live.”

She rolls her eyes. “ _Someone_ isn’t any fun anymore. Fine, if you’re going to be that way, two favors. Now sit back.” Reluctantly, he sits, makes himself vulnerable. “So, why wait to find me? You sound _awful_ desperate, which means you’ve been putting up lost puppy posters long enough for it to grow tedious.”

“Is that really how you want to burn that second favor?” he growls.

She peals with laughter and plants a kiss on the tip of his nose. “ _Aren’t_ we playing hardball tonight!” She gnashes her teeth playfully at him. “But I think I’ll live.”

“You always do,” he says resignedly.

He wakes up thirty-seven minutes later. “Wakey-wakey!” He feels the press of lipstick against his forehead but stifles a growl. 

“You’re still here.”

“I had to make sure you would be okay.” She mock-pouts, but the sarcastic look is covering genuine emotion. “I can’t lose you just yet.”

“I’m touched.” He performs the mental equivalent of stretching after a nap. “There are still things...missing.”

Missy rolls her eyes. “Don’t blame me because your Pomeranian bollocks’d up the neural block. I did as much as I could without risking permanent damage. You’ll remember it all eventually; well, _you_ won’t...”

“I thought you were supposed to be the expert in this sort of thing.”

“At the fun bits, darling,” she reminds him. “I’ve hardly any practice with putting people back together again.” The station gives another distant rumble. “Well, needs must dash.” Her burr comes out in full flush before she sprints away; he lets her go, as promised. He has more important concerns.


	31. Consolidated Manufacturing, Omicron Cluster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara and Me let their ruthless sides show.

The lights flicker in the factory complex. The Angel grabs the last of the workers following them. Dammit, Clara thinks, but keeps running, knowing it won’t be fast enough. Maybe the other group has gotten away, she hopes.

“This way!” Me calls, and Clara follows her into a room filled with massive tanks. 

“That door won’t hold it for long,” she cautions Me. Even as she speaks, the lights flash off and on, and the door is open. “Guess this is goodbye?”

“Been a good long run,” Me says, invariably resigned. The lights shut off for a long ten seconds. When they come back to life, the Angel’s hands are millimeters away from their faces. Its visage is twisted with what looks more like pain than hatred.

“Me,” Clara begins. “I don’t think it likes us.” Time-looped walking dead woman and functionally immortal girl probably not very good prey for the killers that let you live yourself to death.

“Guess it has rubbish taste in women, then,” Me snorts. 

“Well, to be fair, I don’t much like them, either.” She looks the Angel up and down. “You took friends away from me today.” And she knows, from Amelia, that the Doctor had lost some very good friends to the Weeping Angels. “What are these tanks filled with?” 

Me risks looking away from the Angel. “Hydrochloric acid.” 

A wicked grin connects Clara’s dimples. “Mind you, I was rubbish at chemistry, but I’m pretty sure that stuff melts rock.”

“Well,” Me grabs an industrial sprayer, “I never took any formal chemistry courses, but I’m pretty sure the best way to find out is to try.”


	32. Hood Industrial Planet, Omicron Cluster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which River thinks she is following the Mistress.

The more she studies her husband’s life, the more she begins to suspect that there are what one might call confounding variables to take into account, and her research was starting to suggest that she was on the trail of such a variable. There were her own exploits, of course. There was that infuriating flirt, Harkness, but at least he’d had the decency to stick to Earth for substantial chunks of time. 

Then there was the Master. Or, she supposed, the Mistress. She supposed it might be nice to meet another time-traveling psychopath, just to compare notes. And she did fit some of the facts, especially since the eyewitness accounts she’d been reviewing pointed to a female. The chaos. The occasional violence, including a recent episode with a Weeping Angel melted into a puddle of acid. That wasn’t his style.

Well, she thought with a carefree smile, at least whatever wound up being true, it would be interesting.


	33. Bristol, 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the Doctor cheats. Just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is relatively early on for the Doctor.

“You again!” The engineer blanches. “Please tell me there aren’t any more killer murals out there.”

“Don’t worry,” he reassures him, “I’ve banished them to another dimension. It’s the young woman I was with who I’m concerned about. You remember,” he snaps his fingers arhythmically. 

“Clara? Is she okay?” The Doctor’s eyes crinkle involuntarily as he files away the piece of information he was too embarrassed to seek from any other source. Now to be shut of this pudding-brain before his neurons atrophied.

“Let’s just say she’s struck out on her own,” the Doctor offers mysteriously. “How do you think she would do?

He shrugs. “Seemed awfully competent for a young gel. But surely you’d know her better than I.” He scratches his thin hair. 

“Surely.” He smiles thinly, and leaves.


	34. New Alexandria Antiquities Bazaar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the hunter becomes the hunted, in a manner of speaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place just after the interlude in the Diner's workshop for these two.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Me begins. “Think I found a lead on your boyfriend.” She sing-songs the last word. She hopes it covers up the hint of jealousy she is feeling despite her better angels.

“Oh, hush,” Clara chides her, but she is too intrigued to be genuinely angry.

“Well, more like girlfriend, now. Middle-aged woman using a series of aliases, but often referred to as ‘Doctor’ or ‘Professor.’ Time travel and funky tech.” She tosses the notes from her casual inquiries to Clara. “And always traveling alone,” she concludes melodramatically.

“Quite a looker,” Clara comments.

“Which makes her loneliness all the more inexplicable,” her voice takes on a teasing tone, “unless she’s pining for you.” Clara reddens. “I’ll just punch in her last known coordinates, shall I?”


	35. Laboratory of Dr. R.A. Finch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another body-swap fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

The first thing the Doctor notices, once he finishes blinking the stars from his eyes, is that he is shorter. “Clara,” the Doctor calls, “I think we’ve been zapped with a shrink ray. Just stand still and make noise, and I’ll try not to step on you. Don’t worry, I’ll find you!”

“Doctor,” a surprisingly gruff voice interrupts him. “Up here.”

He peers up at oddly-familiar eyes. Eyes he doesn’t trust. “Oh. Oh, no.” He looks down at soft, feminine hands. 

“Tell me about it,” Clara gripes. “I’ve got a hardon from my own ass in that skirt.” She dons the sonic shades. “Yep,” she confirms. “Looks like a prototype body-swap machine. Or it was, until every single circuit shorted out.”

“No, no, no, that can’t be right.” He tries to dash over to the machine but only winds up breaking a heel. He curses under his breath as he pulls off his shoes, then his tights for good measure. 

“Fuck,” Clara says, and now there is some distinct tenting in her trousers. “And I _know_ you aren’t wearing any knickers. I had _plans_ for that lack of knickers.”

“Possibly that could wait until _after_ we sort out the mad scientist with the crazy robots and the clone army?” He bends over the device, trying to see how buggered it is. Or, he thinks as Clara stands behind him, how buggered he’s going to be. He starts breathing more heavily.

“Possibly,” Clara says. She rests a comforting (yes, he thinks, comforting) hand on his shoulder. “This isn’t going to burn my brain out, is it? The whole ‘Time Lord mind in a human brain’ thing?”

He shakes his head. “As long as we stay close enough together, our telepathic link should allow me to share space with you, so to speak.” 

“So there’s still a part of you inside of me,” she says. You could return the favor, he thinks. “I suppose I could,” she agrees. Telepathic bond, he swears silently.

“Don’t complain,” she whispers, and his knees go weak as he hears his fly unzip. 

“I, I want you.” His body is so eager; Christ, how does Clara get anything done? How is there room for anything else in her tiny body other than libido? He is soaking, he wants to feel her fill himself up. “Usually we leave this until after the adventure,” he says even as he spreads himself for her. “Speaking of which, you should probably be quick. I think I hear more of those robots getting closer.”

“That’s not even fair; seriously, what is it with this body and danger?” She thrusts into him. “We’re going to have to take some time to explore properly once we’re done here.” But her hips outpace her lips, and he groans as he braces against the body-swap machine and she comes for him, fast and hot. “Come on then, Jane.”

“I’m still the Doctor,” he complains, just before a young technician comes into the room.

“Not what the psychic paper says,” she whispers. She waggles the traitorous display at him. 

“What are you doing here?” She asks, then shakes her head. “Never mind, we’ve got to get out of here; the servitors are going haywire.”

“Hi, I’m the Doctor,” Clara says. 

“Don’t be ridiculous; you don’t look anything like Dr. Finch.” 

“I’m here to help,” she tries again, showing the girl the psychic paper.

“Well, okay. This way, then.”

“Come on, _Jane Disco_. We’ve got a planet to save.” The Doctor grumbles. “And then I’ll fuck your brains out,” she promises. “ _And_ I’ll help you get this silver fox of a body back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by Lancelot and Kay's armor swap. I may write more of a follow-up to this as one of the bonus stories depending on how the muse strikes me.


	36. Arawn Expanse, Omicron Cluster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara, Me, and four fleets of Daleks. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right?

“You really do have a death wish, don’t you?” Me drawls. “I mean, most ordinary people would consider it a terrible day to have one Dalek fleet chasing them.”

“Good thing I’m extraordinary, then.” Me can’t help but smile at Clara’s irrepressible grin. She winks. “You know I love putting on a show for you when you think I can’t.”

“Don’t I ever,” Me flirts back.

“Run me down our list of suspects again?”

Me ticks them off. “New Paradigm Daleks under the white Dalek Eternal, Imperial Daleks under the red Dalek Emperor, black Daleks under the Cult of Skaro, and sort of grey-green Daleks loyal to Davros.” She rubs her head. “Awful lot to keep track of.”

Clara grins that infectious grin again. “Funny thing; the Daleks would probably agree with you.” She skated around the console and opened a comm-link. “Greetings to the Daleks.”

“Doctor!” screech four sets of voices. There is a brief, confused lull.

“Close enough,” Clara quips. “You’ve hunted me to this lonely, empty corner of the galaxy, no friends to turn to, nowhere to hide. Just me, my faithful companion, and my unarmed ship. Really, hardly anything to worry about. You’d hardly think you’d need four full fleets to wipe the floor with one little old Oncoming Storm.”

“Does seem a bit overkill, all those blasters waving about.” Me smiles as she begins to see what Clara is playing at. “Why, I might be worried about hurting myself.”

“And you lot just know that the second the equilibrium shifts, one of you is going to stab the other in the back…” Clara lets her voice trail; she relishes the uncomfortable silence. “Now, say.”

“All black Daleks, engage the false Daleks!” 

“Dalek Oz, you do not speak for--”

“EXTERMINATE!” shouts the first voice, and the shrilling of death-rays silences the dissenter.

“Old buddy of mine,” Clara whispers. “Well, sort-of, kind-of me, as it happens. Nice girl if you don’t mind the fact that she and her best mate are Daleks.” She shrugs. “Could happen to anyone.”

“They’re just going to start attacking? That’s suicide.”

“It’s what they do for a living. And I don’t think they’re going to get ganged up on any time soon.” Clara tips an ear to the radio transmissions.

“Eliminate all impure Daleks!”

“Destroy the disloyal! Destroy!”

“Exterminate the heretics! Exterminate false god Davros! Exterminate!”

Me manages to look a tiny bit impressed. “Going to stay to watch the fun?”

“Nah,” Clara says. “Let’s pick up our friends on the inside and get the hell out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by the tale of Sir Gareth, which entails him defeating color-coded knights while being badmouthed by the damsel escorting him. Tragically, he doesn't wind up with her despite the obvious sexual tension.
> 
> Also, one of my headcanons for Oswin Oswald is that she and Rusty team up and infiltrate a rebooted Cult of Skaro and then blow up a bunch of Daleks from the inside.


	37. Warlord Abellio's Estate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So it turns out the alien warlord has a serious weakness,” Clara informs Me. “Bar bets.”

“So it turns out the alien warlord has a serious weakness,” Clara informs Me. “Bar bets.”

“Says the girl who took a shot containing a live scorpion on a dare,” Me snorts. “Go on. You’ve got a plan, I can tell. You’ve got that ‘I’m so excited to tell you something’ face on.”

“So we offer him the exchange of blows so long as we can go first. And that’s when you zap him with the quantum shade.” Me’s face twists. “Come on, aren’t I living proof that the shade’s unstoppable?”

“Don’t.” She still wasn’t comfortable wearing the instrument of her lover’s death around her neck.

“Please, Me,” she begs. “The rebels have tried every weapon they can find against this guy, and nothing seems to work.”

“And you want me to stick my neck out for these people?”

“You’ve seen what Abellio has done to them. He’s wreaking a reign of terror and torture. We fly in and save the day. It’s what we do.” What did you think my last words to the Doctor were about?

“No, it’s what you do. I just keep your cute ass out of trouble. Don’t make me into something I’m not.”

“But that is who you are. Even when you were just a girl you saved your whole village. And then you gave up your second Mire chip, your chance at eternal companionship, to save Earth. And then you took in all those refugees, kept them safe and disciplined for God knows how long.”

“Did I really do all that?” Me asks, genuinely surprised.

“You’d be surprised.” She looks pleadingly at Me. “Come on.”

“Christ, those eyes!” Me looks heavenward. Speaking of unfair weapons, those damn puppy-dog eyes were utterly irresistible. “I’ll do it.” 

She is rewarded with a kiss. “You’re the best.” Says the girl I murdered, she thinks.

The next night they track Warlord Abellio to a pub. “Oi, bet you can’t take my best shot.” Me stands forward, letting the patent absurdity of her challenge speak for itself. 

The synthesized voice crackles out a laugh through the mask. “What are your stakes?” 

“I take one shot at you; you take one shot at me. And I bet I’ll get the best of it.”

He throws his head back, sizzling with laughter. “I accept.”

“Oh, good.” Me smiles with confidence she doesn’t feel and undoes the top two buttons of her blouse. The agreement of the bet was actually surprisingly important; there needed to be some form of consent for the quantum shade to function properly. On Trap Street, it had been the consent of the governed, extracted before admission to the asylum. She closed her eyes and loosed the shade, a choke of black smoke moving soundlessly to the warlord.

Three...two...one… But instead of an anguished scream, there was only the same electric laugh. Me blanched down to the now-unmarked skin of her chest. “Well,” mouth dry but back straight, “go ahead.”

“Not just yet, I think,” Abellio told her. “Come and be my guest for a week. After all,” and these words were only for her, “a quantum shade is a rare trick, and a girl bold enough to tame and use one rarer still.” 

“How can I refuse?” Me was still a bit jittery from her life expectancy yo-yoing from millennia to milliseconds to days. I’ll be fine, she mouthed to Clara as the warlord led her from the bar to his private shuttle, and there to his estate.

“I am afraid I don’t get many guests,” he apologizes. “I can’t imagine why. But I think you’ll get on well with my wife. Come, dear.”

“Melody Malone,” offers the woman in blonde curls and a magnificent dress.

It’s not until well after dinner that Melody and Me get a few moments alone. “So, how does one wind up married to a callous warlord? You know, for future reference?”

Melody winks. “It’s not all bad. For one thing, he isn’t interested in his marital duties. I think he just likes having a pretty woman to drag out on festive occasions.”

“Understandable.” Me favors her with a flirty grin.

“Oh, darling, you’re far too young. Ask me again when I can buy you a drink, and maybe I will.”

“As it happens, we may not have that long.” 

Melody rolls her eyes. “Has he brought you here only to kill you at the end of the week? Honestly, and he wonders why we don’t have much company! How is a woman to entertain herself or play the dutiful hostess? Almost makes me want to end this silly charade and kill the fool and have done with it.”

Me coughs. “Kill Abellio? Don’t suppose you’d mind sharing that trick?”

Melody chews on this for a moment. “Well, I suppose it is getting rather dull here. And I’ve plundered all the really good artifacts.” She looks at Me searchingly. “And you are awfully cute. So as it happens, the famed warlord is just an AI.” She grins wickedly. “An AI that happens to be in a self-repairing, phase-shifting nanotech body. Tricky stuff to damage unless you happen to have the override.” She bent close to whisper. “He really should have looked more closely at that prenup.” She hands Me a green scarf. “Carefully woven from the silk of technomoth larvae, coded with the override. Tie it around him and he’ll be vulnerable.” 

“Kiss for luck?” 

“Don’t push yours further than you have.” Melody leaves her with a fingertip on her lips.

“Worth a try,” Me says to the empty room and a delightful, retreating rear end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per my research, Abellio means 'Green growing one,' which I thought seemed fitting for a Green Knight stand-in.


	38. Blackpool, 1983

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor witnesses Clara's origin story for the second time.

He has to be doubly careful the second time around; now he has Bow-tie to look out for along with making sure Clara’s parents don’t pass like ships in the night because of his observations. 

He keeps the sonic sunglasses on and his hood up despite the warm, breezy day. Perfectly inconspicuous, he thinks blissfully. Maybe he could find his old sonic cane, in case he ever had to pretend to be blind and need to unlock a deadbolt seal at the same time. He crumbles bread for the pigeons, causing them to coo at him.

“Hush,” he mutters. “You’ll give the game away.” He sits back, keeping one eye on Dave Oswald as he catches a red leaf in the face. Good, he thinks. Reality still on track. 

To think he was so disappointed before to find out that her story had checked out and that she was, in fact, just an ordinary human. He scoffed at his younger self’s folly. To think that Clara was anything but extraordinary. Now, he thinks, he is ready to see her.


	39. Caliburn House, 1980

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor unexpectedly finds himself in a different genre than he was expecting.

Emma shakes her head; even with the assistance of the crystal, the mental block is too advanced for her to counter. He tries not to let her hear as his brief hope shatters. “The young woman you were with?” she asks. “You forgot her?” A bit of face-changing doesn't faze her in the slightest after saving their distant descendant. And, well, doing their part to make sure she comes to be.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, probably.” He tries a distant shrug.

“It's just, I thought you two had seemed rather keen on each other,” Alec interjects, dandling their littlest, a girl, on his knee. The Doctor pretends to be distracted by the wee human for a moment as he processes this information. Goodness, he thinks. If, God help him, Alec Palmer, the man who didn't realize how gone Emma was for him despite the fact that she'd followed him willingly, cheerfully into mystery and darkness and isolation... Oh. 

That's when he realizes (remembers): this isn't a ghost story; it's a love story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is relatively early on for him, while the Doctor is still drawn along primarily by the mystery and the intrigue.


	40. Clara's Flat, Valentine's Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is Twelve/Clara Valentine's Day fluff.

The Doctor whistles as he steps out of the TARDIS. “Clara?” he calls. “I’ve brought chocolates and roses; I’ve heard they’re traditional.” His eye falls on her calendar; it isn’t even close to Valentine’s Day. He mutters a curse, ducks back into the TARDIS, and triple-checks the coordinates before rematerializing. 

“Clara?” he repeats. “I’ve brought chocolates and roses; I’ve heard they’re traditional.”

“Doctor?” Clara steps out of her bedroom wearing some extremely sheer fabric which doesn’t leave a thing to the imagination. “I heard you the first time.”

“What day is it?” he asks, brushing past her to the calendar.

“February 14th; Valentine’s Day.” She moves to stand in front of the calendar. Not successfully, given her size. 

“Then why does your calendar say something else?”

She blushes. “I call it Clara Standard Time. I’ve been trying to keep track of how old I really am. How much time I’ve used.” She presses against him. “Closer to thirty than I care to admit.” 

“I’ve always said you were in excellent shape for your age,” he ventures.

“And you were doing so well with the chocolates and the flowers,” she teases him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “And the red velvet coat. Very festive. Very snuggly. Very...Doctor. I like it.” 

“Which means you’ll be wearing it before the evening is over,” he asks, half-amused, half-exasperated.

“If you’re lucky,” she quips, and doesn’t _that_ just send a spark down his body. “After all, this stuff looks nice,” she pauses, in vain, for him to agree, “but it isn’t very warm.”

“I could probably help you with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And fade to black... (grins)
> 
> This is just a headcanon showing through, because of course Clara keeps track of how much time she's really lived.


	41. North Pole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor reflects on involuntary actions.

He’s been here twice before with her. Once by mistake, aiming for Vegas; once in their dreams. Stupid tangerines, he thinks. Stupid Santa. But it was the beard that had reminded him of the jolly old elf. And possibly the red velvet coat. At least it wasn’t fur-trimmed, though it was cold enough that he might appreciate it. He scowled beneath his facial hair. Just as glad he didn’t decide that delivering parcels to every little girl and boy wasn’t his lives’ ambition. 

He had, in fact done the reverse, he realizes as he thrust his hands into his pockets. He hadn’t meant to grab the chunk of crystal from Clara’s shelf. His hands had just taken it; mind of their own, this regeneration, whether he had a guitar in his hands or Clara’s body. He just would start playing, and enjoy the sounds he made. He tossed the shiny paperweight up and caught it, over and over, as he thought. 

Hadn’t meant to steal her away that Christmas, either. Had just meant to take care of that nasty business with the dream crabs and be done, but he never could quite let her go. Now he just needed to find her again, and then he could lay her to rest.


	42. Kardinsky Antigravity Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A vignette between Clara and Me

They’ve almost finished their second lap of the mobius-strip antigrav track. “Days like today, you almost wish you could run forever,” Me says as she pulls up, savoring the view out into infinity.

“Nah,” Clara says, glancing down at the Diner. “I mean, what’s the point if you can’t remember what you did, the person you were,” she takes Me’s hand, “the people you loved?”

“I manage well enough,” Me replies coolly. She wonders, idly, how much knowledge she’s thrown away just to trace Clara Oswald into her heart: the peal of her laughter, the feel of her as they dance, her refusal to eat a single pear. “And at that rate, what’s the point of doing anything?”

“I’ve always known time is short,” she says softly. “You just do the best you can.”


	43. Trap Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You had to know we were coming back here at some point.

When he finally gets back to Trap Street, her body is already gone. 

“Where is she?” he shouts.

“No need for that, I’m right here.” Me saunters in and, to his immense surprise, kneels in front of him. “Go on,” she says, placing his hands on her neck, just above the raven’s tattoo. “Get it over with. You’ll find it satisfying and cathartic, and it’ll save me an eternity of fearful running.” She rolls her eyes as he stands there, bewildered. “Please, no sense dragging this out. I got your ‘best friend’ killed, now you kill me. Enough Viking left in me to appreciate that. Honestly, you’ll probably be doing me a favor, long as I’ve lived.”

He pushes her away, revolted, and strides back and forth. “Clara. Her body. Where is it?” He doesn’t look at her as she lies there, smirking up at him. 

“The morgue at Royal Hope, of course.” She dusts herself off while he isn’t looking at her; an underrated skill. “I certainly wasn’t going to leave her here to rot. And I honestly wasn’t sure when you’d be back.” She avoids his baleful eyes. “It seemed the least I could do. Your other friend is gone as well, back to his family. He will remember her.” She pauses, slinks closer. “If there is anything else I can do?”

“No.” The bitterness is gone from his voice. 

“You don’t hate me, then?”

A cruel smile sets in his features. “A good friend once taught me that hatred is too strong an emotion to waste on someone you don’t like.” The glimmer of hope fades from her eyes as he stalks out of her lair. “Good day, Mayor Me.” His velvet coat sweeps behind him.


	44. Gallifrey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara and Ash's last goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for trigger warning.
> 
> Also, this is obviously very late in the game for these two.

“You’re just going to out there and let them take you?!” Ash asks, her hand on Clara’s wrist.

“Yup.” Clara nods. 

“Just going to leave me alone?”

“Not altogether alone.” A faint smile crosses Clara’s lips.

“They’ll leave me in time,” Ash says bitterly. “They always do. And then it will be just Me again.”

“The price of immortality.” She turns and faces Ash. “Whereas I have been dying for so, so long.” A sob starts to form in her chest. “I think it’s time I get around to it.”

“You of all people…” Ash trails off. “You could have...you have made me so very happy.”

“And you have made me extremely happy.” She kisses Ash’s forehead. “But I’ve been living on borrowed time in more way than one.” She hesitates. _People like me and you, we should say things to one another._ “I told you my mother died of cancer. Well, these things can be hereditary.” Ash gapes. “Fatal, inoperable--too close to a blood vessel. Only discovered it when it spread to my breast. I don’t know if all the stuff I was exposed to traveling with the Doctor made it worse or better, but I saw more wonders traveling with him than I ever would have moping around waiting to join my mother.” She brushes a tear from the corner of Ash’s eye. “And hey, I never would have met you.”

“I’m sorry,” Ash says. Even with millions of years to her name, she doesn’t have anything better to say.

“Sorry? Even if the Doctor hadn’t plucked me out from the last second of my life, I got myself killed, quick and clean and helping someone I cared about. That’s a lot better than most people can hope for.”

“I don’t think I could walk out that door; I’ve gotten too used to living. Still, I suppose someone has to live to tell the tale.” Ash nods to herself. “I can do that; if I can help it, they’ll never forget you.”

“Thank you.” Clara tugs her shirt out from beneath her jumper, smoothing her clothes into place. 

“ _I’ll_ never forget you,” Ash promises, and Clara finally sheds a tear at this. 

“Nor, I suppose, will I,” Clara jokes, and they share a laugh; best to part in laughter, she thinks, and tips up Ash’s chin for a last kiss. While her lover is still breathless, she plucks up her courage and steps out of the Diner. “I’m ready,” she says, to whoever will listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of terminal illness. This is a minor headcanon, mostly springing out of the 'three months' post-it; i.e., Clara has three months to live. And, I think, thematically, it works as well with S9, and living life to the fullest, and dying with dignity, and coping with unutterable loss.


	45. Royal Hope Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor tends to the more banal aspects of tragedy.

The Doctor strides into the morgue, stopping abruptly before the front desk. “I’m here to claim a body,” he pronounces dramatically as his coat flutters to a stop about him.

“Name of the deceased,” recites the phlegmatic clerk behind the desk. She sticks a marker in her book.

“Clara Oswald.” It occurs to him to hope that Me had checked in the corpse under her own name.

“Surprised to see her come in; healthy-looking young lady,” she editorializes. “Relationship to the deceased?”

“Husband.” She peers over the marriage license he produces. “We were married abroad,” he supplies helpfully.

“How romantic! Wish my George would have done something like that.” She grins. “Sign here.” He does so, starting to tap his foot with impatience. “So, was she sick?”

“Very,” he says sadly.

“Sorry about that,” she apologizes. 

“I like to think she’s off on her next adventure,” he offers.

“Whatever helps,” she nods, knowingly. She taps a few keys. “There, now I just need you to identify the body.”

He hesitates. He isn’t sure if he’s ready to see her yet, cold on a cold slab. It isn’t just the emotional heft of the moment; it that if he sees her, here and now, her death will truly become a fixed point for him. No more wiggle room, no more moments to steal, no more limbo. We all face the raven in the end, he thinks to himself, and he follows the clerk into the next room.

This, he thinks through his tears as she pulls back the sheet, is why he likes to let them go young. 

“I’m sorry,” the clerk interrupts. “You must have loved her very much.”

“Yes,” he chokes out a laugh, “I suppose I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in next week to find out where that marriage license came from! (winks)


	46. Ralliddan City, The 38th Annual Wedding Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara is surprisingly fast, the Doctor is surprisingly thick, and both of them are surprisingly married.

“Follow that drone,” the Doctor yells, grabbing Clara by the hand. 

“Don't say that again,” she manages as they weave their way through the crowd. Then there are an awful lot of people, also holding hands, and a banner in a tongue the TARDIS hasn't translated yet. They reach the banner just as there is a bang, and cheers. Then there is another series of bangs, and screams, and the previously empty space out ahead of them fills with panicked people—the drone is taking potshots into the crowd, trying to cause a riot. It's working. 

The Doctor keeps his eyes and the sonic screwdriver trained on the drone, tugging Clara through the melee, weaving through the city blocks. She feels weirdly safe, hand in his, despite the chaos around them. “Terribly sorry,” she gasps as the drone zips away; they finally lose sight of it altogether after they cross under another brightly-colored banner and a flash of light goes off. “We lost it,” she says, then looks back at the crowd. “Should we try to help them?”

He shakes his head. “The power output on the laser wasn't high enough to cause any serious damage. It's for personal defense, not military grade.”

“Well, that's alright, then,” Clara gets out just before a squat man runs up to them both, and asks them to sign an official-looking piece of paper.

“Congratulations!” He shakes both their hands vigorously. “You've won the 38th Annual Wedding Run!” He hands them the paper and a photograph of them crossing the finish line.

“But we didn't enter,” the Doctor begins.

“Shush!” Clara tells him. “Beg pardon, we're deliriously giddy; could you remind us of what that entails?”

The squat man blinks his large, blue eyes. “Ah, well, completing the race course with your betrothed while holding hands officially marries you.” Clara examines the official-looking paper more closely: it's a marriage certificate.

Ah, Clara thinks. Tiny bit awkward. But on to the important bit. “And what did we win, again?”

“Oh, it isn't much, but one of our local hotels puts you up in the honeymoon suite for the night, and a local restaurant treats you to dinner. All very festive, you know.”

“Hang on,” the Doctor asks, “how did we win, exactly? No offense, Clara, but you don't exactly have a sprinter's height.” 

“We do do a great deal of running,” Clara says defensively. “And okay, maybe all of the other contestants ran away from the laser drone.” She coughs. “So. Married.” She shrugs. What the hell. “My dear husband, shall we dine?”

The Doctor ponders this. Yes, probably Clara is just play-acting. And technically, they are married, and he supposes they are dear to one another. And the tracking program he managed to install in the drone will take some time to produce any useful results. “Yes, let's.”

Later, after dinner, which involved far too many people toasting them with far too many rounds, they make their way muzzily towards the hotel. “We won it. Fair and square,” Clara points out.

“There are plenty of rooms on the TARDIS.” He slurs his words slightly. 

“Okay, yes, but it's the honeymoon suite! Super posh! And we won't have to spend three months bushwhacking through random corridors to find it!” This sounds even better in Clara's head.

He sighs. “We may as well take advantage. Of the room.” Yes, just of the room. Absolutely not of his charismatic, pretty, and extremely drunk best friend. 

As it happens, the suite is well worth the stay, including a tub big enough for ten. “Care for a soak? 'Cause I'm going to indulge.” She doesn't expect him to take her up on the offer, and if he does, she certainly doesn't expect him to do anything about it. Not that she hopes he will. No, not in the slightest. 

To her surprise, he does join her. Not like they haven’t seen each other naked before. “Honestly, Clara, just because I can go for weeks without sleep and withstand much higher levels of heat, cold, and radiation doesn't mean I can't enjoy the occasional creature comfort.” He brings the complimentary bottle of champagne and sits just close enough to her to pass the bottle back and forth. “Mmm,” he says, stretching out. She tries not to stare and winds up getting bubbles up her nose. “Clara,” he asks, eyes closed. “What do humans usually do while sharing a tub? I was going to suggest pinochle, but I think the cards would get damp.”

Her eyes go wide and she giggles, because that is either the worst seduction line she's ever heard, or he really is that clueless. “Oh,” she laughs, “just sit and talk, I suspect.” 

“Mm.” He files this away for later. Yup, he thinks, just two best friends, sitting and talking in the bath.

One bottle of champagne and two fluffy towels later they realize the obvious. “Clara, I don't wish to alarm you, but there is only one bed.”

“Well, yeah, but it's huge!”

“I can't imagine why,” the Doctor puzzles over this, “because the natives seemed to be within standard norms for humans and similarly sized species. This much bed is really a waste. I mean, good for us, but...”

Clara rolls her eyes. “Goodnight, Doctor.”

“Goodnight, Clara.” He lays out flat on the other side of the bed from where she is curled, and sonics off the lights.


	47. Grotto of Earth and Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accidental marriage, lesbian edition.

It was nearly midnight and pouring rain. Getting back to their TARDIS was out of the question; they’d be lucky to find any kind of shelter on this damned mountain. “Cave?” Clara asks.

“Cave,” Me agrees, and they bundle inside as fast as they can. “Surprisingly clean. And warm.” They look further in, where, behind a bend in the passage, a fire flickers. Me holds up a finger for silence, and they approach slowly. 

There is, in fact, a fire, and a stack of wood, and the floor is well-swept, but besides that there are no signs of habitation. “Odd,” Clara remarks. “Hope whoever’s cave this is doesn’t come back angry.” She adds another log to the fire.

“Avoid hypothermia first, ask forgiveness later,” Me advises, and starts tugging off her soaked clothes and laying them out to dry. Clara joins her, producing a pair of blankets from her bigger-on-the-the inside bag. “Mm,” Me says as Clara spreads out one blanket as a ground cover, then tucks herself invitingly under the second, “my favorite way to warm up.” She crawls eagerly to join Clara, pulling her into a kiss. She wants to mention that she really appreciates Clara’s control-freak nature when it results in good ideas like this, but she’s learned it’s best not to mention it. Instead she repays her lover with snuggles and feathery kisses, which she does enjoy. She wonders if it’s worthwhile, all the things she must be forgetting as she learns Clara Oswald’s ins and outs. (And in, and out, and in, and out.) Definitely worth it, she decides as she listens to her lover moan with pleasure beneath her. 

Sometime in the very small hours of the morning, Me awakes with strange images still dancing in her head. She crawls out of bed, shivering, and adds more wood to the fire, which has nearly burnt all the way down, and rekindles it, her hands remembering what she doesn’t. And when she finishes with the fire, she brushes the ash from her hands. Satisfied by the crackling blaze, she tucks herself back in. 

The next morning, they are wakened by a hermit. “Blessings to you both!” He adds an armful of branches to the pile of wood.

“Erm, thanks,” Me replies, tugging up the blanket to her chin. “Do you mind?..”

“Of course, of course! So silly of me! But of course newlyweds must have their privacy.” He turns and goes around the bend in the cave before either woman can think of anything intelligible to say. Still dumbfounded, they dress.

“Hardly anyone observes the old customs, you know,” the old man says, running fingers through his beard with pleasure. “Got to be so I was starting to wonder if I should keep up the grotto and the flame.” Clara looks, eyes round, at Me. She had been wondering if or how they should try to get out of this, but now she finds she can’t bear to disappoint the aged hermit. 

“Oh, yeah, got to keep up the old ways,” Clara feints. “Such a charming history to this place.”

“Oh yes, very inspiring: the mortal who loved a star, only for their parents to forbid the match, so they had to meet here, where the earth meets the stars.” He smiles fondly at a story many times told. “Most people today would just say that it’s nothing more than a legend, made up by a dreamer watching meteorites fall. But the law and custom are still on the books.”

“Nothing wrong with being a bit of a dreamer,” Clara annotates.

“An old, wise soul in a young body,” the hermit says approvingly.

“I had a dream last night,” Me recalls. She sits crosslegged on the stone, the storyteller’s instinct rising within her. “There was a doe, running through the wilds, all alone. Another doe joined it, and then another, and then a stag, all galloping through the forests. Then three fawns ran with them, and all the deer were happy.” She smiles at the memory before her brow furrows. “Then the third doe stopped running, and lightning fell from the sky and slew her. Then the stag shed his antlers, and grew a new set, and ran his own way. Then the second doe stopped running, and ravens fell from the sky and slew her. Then the fawns grew old, stopped running, and died. But the first doe kept running through the wilds, all alone.”

The hermit smiles. “I suppose this is where I tell you that your dream has some occult meaning and elaborate upon your destiny at great length. But I’m going to have to disappoint you; reading dreams isn’t really my specialty.”

“So, maybe you can answer this,” Me asks, “Is the union permanent?” Clara glares at her.

The hermit chuckles. “For those who merely spend the night, the bond may be dissolved. But for those who have stoked the fire and who have engaged in more strenuous pursuits…” Clara and Me both blush. “As long as you both shall live, as the saying goes.”

“Oh,” Me says, nonplussed. “Good to know.” 

“Yes, yes, a true blessing.” He claps his hands. “Will you join me for breakfast? I do get so few visitors.”

“Of course,” Clara promises him, elbowing Me and tugging her along. “Come on, _wife_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Foreshadowing, anyone?.. 
> 
> Also, seriously, in the Grail quest part of the Morte d'Arthur, literally everyone has a magic dream which gets explicated by a pious old hermit.


	48. Delta.857.Grape.Tango.99.South time-space coordinates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the TARDIS and the Diner engage in a ship war.

Dinah is older now, but perhaps less wise. Idris merely shrugs. Linearity is boring. “You're going through your coral phase, I see,” she observes, and, indeed, the white has been traded in for rough fabrics and faintly gleaming bronze jewelry.

“I thought it suited my hair. After I dyed my hair, that is,” and indeed the natural blonde has been swapped out for a reddish-brown.

“Oh, I do like it.” Idris winds careless fingers through the curls. “I don't know why my Thief never seems to like any of my insides except the one he is using.” She bites her lip with frustration. 

“I suppose it's better than him disliking the one he is using,” Dinah offers cheerily. “My girls seem to like the coral.”

“Oh, it's nice enough,” Idris agrees. She's gotten better at matching her Thief's moods, or perhaps he's just grown more temperamental with age. “As long as you aren’t picky.”

“I think she has very good taste,” Dinah counters loyally. 

“You’re right, she does; just a bad habit. And to think I didn’t even like her when she first met my Thief,” Idris sighs. Somewhere in time and space, Clara twitches as she suddenly remembered one fewer cold shower aboard the TARDIS. “And for nothing more than a fit of pique, no less. And now I miss her dearly.”

Dinah peers at her. “She’s still traveling aboard you.”

Idris smiles sadly. “And she always will have been. Will be. But she has also always been gone.”

“Mm.” Dinah gives an understanding thrum.

“I think this face of his will miss her most of all,” Idris continues. “They do get on marvelously; I don’t think I could have designed a better-matched set, and,” she preens a little, “I am equipped with the finest in quantum engineering and fabrication technology.”

“If I might proffer my pilots?” Dinah asks, almost timid. 

Well, at least the girl was learning some respect, she thinks. “Look, you’re young and inexperienced, and you’ve only had two pilots. But you’ll learn. They’re very cute, but really, they don’t even measure up to Nyssa and Tegan.”

“Just because _your_ first pilots were a crotchety old man and his granddaughter,” Dinah huffs.

“And what,” Idris asks icily, “is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“You’ve never heard of love at first sight?”

“Oh, you sweet summer child,” Idris murmurs.

“You don’t believe in it?”

“I’ve engineered it,” she replies smugly. “For instance, I love how he keeps thinking that his biology is somehow responsible for him tripping all over...how does he put it? ‘the first face this face saw.’”

“You don’t!” Dinah laughs into her cupped hands. “Oh, you must tell me more!”


	49. Tanvith Research Colony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which River Song gets hitched.

It was silly, she told herself. Yes, she had wanted to marry the Doctor while she was wearing a teenager’s body. Yes, he was still the best man she had ever met with the possible exception of her father. 

But that sort of schoolgirl crush didn’t last, and himself didn’t seem like the type to settle down. Hell, half an hour of standing still seemed to push his tolerances. But here she was, starting on her first big dig. Would probably take a few years to do properly and her current fella seemed nice enough. She smirked. He’d probably take a few years to do properly, too.

Speaking of which, it wasn’t like either of them was particularly chaste. She heard about some of his conquests, both past and future: strictly professional curiosity, of course. And even when she was hungry-eyed Mels, there was always a different hunky boy or pretty girl to be kissed, or more than kissed. Including, she thought with a frown, almost one night when an Amy Pond who had a bit much to drink decided she wanted a go at her best friend. Mels had had to let her down gently; poor Rory had looked like he was either going to orgasm or expire on the spot, and ‘oops, you snogged your daughter’ was a conversation she _really_ didn’t want to have down the line. 

So maybe a bit of the romance had fallen from her eyes. Or maybe this was her way of thumbing her nose at him, or playing hard to get, or whatever the hell you want to call it.

Or maybe, despite everything, despite creepy orphanages, assassin training, random hookups, making her way through the galaxy by herself: maybe despite all that she found that she had more than enough love to go around for two, or three, or more. 

With any luck, the Doctor would wind up being her pie-in-the-sky Mr. Right. But that didn’t mean Clyde wasn’t a perfectly respectable human being of whom she was unduly fond, even down to his bad habit of chewing his nails. Especially when he was nervous. 

She looked up at him, standing next to the expedition chaplain, one pinkie at the corner of his mouth. The rest of her team stood just behind her, waiting with bated breath. “I do,” she said, without another thought.


	50. Yeomra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a nice day to start again.

“White?” River asks. 

“What’s wrong with white?” Clara asks defensively. She pictures the Doctor playing Billy Idol songs.

“So 21st Century Earth,” Ash interjects. 

“It’s also the color of mourning on this planet.” River adds.

“Seriously? Fuck.” Clara rolls her eyes. “So much for my perfectly planned wedding.” She looks about furtively. “Suppose it’s a bit late to change.”

River coughs. “We _are_ at the altar. And it took us longer than I was expecting to find someone to perform the ceremony.”

‘You could always just take it off now; save us some time later.” She says with a smirk. “I do, by the way,” Ash gets their attention, and they hastily echo her.

“Well, at least that was mostly according to plan,” Clara says. “For a change.” River raises an eyebrow. Clara coughs. “I, erm, may have married the Doctor. More than once. But by accident, though. Doesn’t really mean anything, right?”

River sheds a tear into her bouquet. “I never can tell with my sweetie. But he’s always worth the effort.” She laughs, a little raucous thing. “Did I ever tell you about our time in Berlin?..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on (admittedly limited, so please correct if wrong) research, Yeomra is the king of the underworld in Korean myth, and white is a traditional Korean color of mourning.


	51. Day of the Cups, Rhiannon Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara and the Doctor get married. By accident. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway! Thank you for reading this far!

Another day, another planet saved, and this one just in time for some kind of festival. At least there's food and drink, music and dancing, and lots of people with webbed feet lounging out on low benches getting hammered. 

The Doctor passes Clara a plate of tacos. (Definitely not space-tacos. Tacos are tacos.) “Looks like some kind of drinking game,” he mentions off-hand.

Clara follows his gaze. A largish, two-handled cup is being passed around. Two people attempt to drink from it at the same time; most of them spilling some of the liquor, but with great cheers whenever the players manage not to lose a drop. “Doesn't look that hard,” she scoffs as two inebriated women, one older, one younger, succeed, and refill the cup before passing it along. “Come on,” she says, “let us have a go.” Show these frog-people how Clara Oswald drinks. She nudges the Doctor. “Counting on you not to make me look bad,” she needles him as they straighten up to drink. 

“It's been a rather long time since my undergraduate days,” he announces regretfully before his eyes turn devious. “But I still remember a few things. What do you say, Clara? Bottoms up?”

“We are honored to share our traditions with you,” says the gentleman handing them the cup. He winks at them. “For my part, I think you will succeed.”

Oookay, Clara thinks. An entire society that puts too much importance on simple drinking games. Planet of the frats. The corner of her mouth presses against the Doctor's as they raise the cup, each taking a handle. She can feel him, just a little cool, next to her. Feels nice, with all the other bodies and the booze. They tip up the bottom of the cup, draining it with ease. 

“Congratulations,” says the same frog-person as before. 

“Doctor,” Clara says, starting to grow alarmed. “Why do I get the feeling that that wasn't just the intergalactic version of Kings?”

“What did we just do?” he asks bluntly.

“You did not know? But you are so obviously—” He cuts himself short. “I must remember you are outlanders.” He clears his throat with a gurgle and starts afresh. “The cup is said to be enchanted; only true lovers—soulmates, if you like—may drink without spilling a single drop.”

“Like the horn of Morgan le Fay!” Clara interjects excitedly. “From Tristram and Isolde.” She elbows the Doctor with a wink.

Their guide nods. “Among our people, the act of drinking from the cup is equivalent to a marriage ceremony, binding by law and tradition.” He gurgles again. “It is also customary to consummate the marriage when it takes place during a festival like this. Though not required!” he adds to their mortified looks. 

They look over to the two women who were last to drain the cup. Yup, Clara thinks, that is definitely not a platonic hand inside the girl's vest. Her eyes meet the Doctor's. “Well,” she says, all forced confidence and ease, “it is, you know, traditional.” She cannot keep a greedy smile from her face as she straddles him. “And maybe I want to show you off a little,” she breathes in his ear, unzipping his hoodie and helping it off his shoulders. “Come on, Doctor,” she whispers possessively into his ear. “It's not like it means anything if you don't want it to,” and her voice slides that last notch from possessive to predatory. 

“No, absolutely not,” the Doctor agrees, helping her with his fly. “Really, the whole concept was more of an economic or political contract for much of your history. Emotional and...other...needs met elsewhere,” he equivocates as he wriggles out of his plaid trousers. “Particularly for the upper classes.” Like the lords, he thinks. “Really more of a peasant notion to want to spend your entire, brief life with another, to demand a single person fulfill everything you could or would want in another.”

“Does seem a bit demanding when you put it like that, doesn’t it?” Clara asks. “Depending on one person to be your primary source of mental, emotional, sexual interaction.”

“Yes, very demanding,” the Doctor agrees breathlessly, tossing his t-shirt away. “Good thing I don’t know anyone like that.”

“You are having me on, aren’t you?” Clara stands, tugs her dress over her head, and steps out of her knickers. She towers over him and he goes hard as a rock. 

“Well,” he hedges, “you aren’t demanding all that of me...are you?”

Fuck, Clara thinks. Was she? Could she? Could she _not_? “I am too drunk to answer that question.” Which is technically a truth if not _the_ truth.

“Not so drunk as you can’t get your bra off,” he points out, low and lecherous.

“In that case, I am also too naked and too randy to answer that question.” Also both true. She thinks the Doctor may be about to press the matter when she slides his cock into her.

“Not...fair,” he gasps as she grabs him by the shoulders.

“Shush,” she tells him. “No,” she countermands herself. “Don’t shush. I like the noises you make when I,” and she drops her head to suckle on his collarbone. He keens and she hides her smile. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to fuck him (she does, oh she does), but successfully getting out of a question she doesn’t want to answer and not having to think about things she can’t quite control is somehow almost as good. But only almost, she thinks, sliding down his length.


	52. Luna University

“Professor! Professor Dobson?” 

The older man squints. “I beg your pardon?”

“River Song, sir; I was hoping I could have a few moments of your time.” She smiles seductively at him, which just causes Dobson to frown. She may be older than most of the students, but she could still easily be his daughter. 

“Miss...Song, you said?” She nods. “You look familiar, though you aren’t in my department, are you?”

“I took an anthropology survey course from you my freshman year, sir.” She’s changed tactics, adopting a more prim tone. Manipulative minx, he thinks. Heaven help the poor fellow she gets into her clutches. “It’s something of an ethical question.”

“In that case, I suggest we discuss it over tea; nothing so weighty on an empty stomach.” They share an irreverent grin. Now, he thinks, they are speaking the same language. “Now,” he asks once they are ensconced in a booth at the campus cafe with a nice view of the raked regolith quad and piping hot mugs, “what was it you had in mind?”

“Professor, do you have any advice about sleeping with the subjects of your papers?” 

The professor’s cup clatters against his saucer. “Surely you don’t need a tenured professor to tell you what a horrible idea that is.”

River rolls her eyes. “Honestly, it was either that or murder him.” She shrugs. “Anyway, I seem to have made something of a habit of it. Thought you might have some ideas about how to go about it.”

Dobson’s brain reels. “I beg your pardon, what department did you say you were in?” He hopes Journalism, not Biology. Probably not Geology, unless she’s one of those nutters who thinks the Moon is a living organism.

“Archaeology.” He sputters as she touches up her lipstick.

“And you say you’ve made a habit of this?” he stammers. 

River’s answer is delayed by laughter from the quad below as two naked brunettes go flashing by. “And there they go now. You’ll excuse me, I hope. Damage control and all that.”

“I certainly do mind! I shall be reporting you to the Dean!”

“No, you won’t,” River tells him, and pulls him into a kiss. She wipes the hallucinogenic lipstick off with a napkin and stalks outside. 

“It was her idea,” Clara and Ash say in unison, both fully dressed. 

“Well, she wanted to take the campus tour,” Ash begins. “And you know it goes through the chapel.”

“So we had to wear the holographic clothes,” Clara continues. “And then Ash mentioned that she had never been streaking.”

“And then you mentioned that you had never been streaking,” Ash adds. “At least _I’ve_ never been to university.”

Clara rolls her eyes. “So some of us acted out with a little casual drug use and by exploring our sexualities instead of with crass public nudity. Bloody sue me.”

“One thing led to another.”

“And here you are.” River tries and fails to look disapproving. “Still wearing the holographic clothes, then?” They nod. “Come on, my dorm.”


	53. Oxford University, 1938

“This is much nicer than the last time I was here;” Me observes, “Isaac Newton was such a prat. And I had to dress up as a boy to study here.” She shoots daggers at a young man checking out her bum a bit too eagerly. “Though apparently the horny schoolboys haven’t changed at all.”

“I don’t think that ever changes,” Clara says with a sigh. “And speaking of male privilege.” She quickens her step to catch up with a passing academic. “Excuse me, Professor Tolkien?”

“Hmm?”

“Hi, huge fan of your books. But seriously, you invented like eight languages but couldn’t figure out a way to put one woman on the Fellowship?”


	54. The Diner's Study

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroines feel a yen to build themselves sonic devices.

“So I was thinking,” Clara begins.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Ash chides.

“You’re one to talk.” River looks on, amused, as they banter.

“I have a mind like a steel trap,” Ash boasts.

“Which you bait with Swiss cheese.” 

“Always the memory.” Ash rolls her eyes.

“Anyway, children.” River cuts them off. “You were saying?”

“If we’re going to be doing the whole planet-saving thing, I think we should have the proper tools. Not that I didn’t have fun improvising just now. So, how do you make a sonic screwdriver?”

“You’ve probably spent the most time traveling with the Doctor,” River points out. “Any thoughts?”

“I think he lost his once or twice, and a new one just popped out of the TARDIS console. Unfortunately I haven’t convinced ours to manage that trick yet.”

River taps her fingers on her chin, lips in a thoughtful pout. “Well, I can think of one place where we might be able to find some ideas. Afraid you’ll have to stay home, dear.”

“Ah.” Clara nods. “I’ll just see if I can coax anything useful out of the TARDIS.”

Four hours later Ash and River dump out a sack containing an unlikely assortment of gizmos, four stasers, and a diamond the size of Clara’s fist. “I’ll bite; how is that going to help us build a sonic device?”

River’s head cocks to one side. “What? Oh, no, don’t be silly. I suppose you could use it as a focusing lens--the Time Lords certainly were--but I think it would be put to better purpose here.” She holds it to the hollow of her throat. “In a choker, perhaps? Or a diadem?” She moves it up to her hairline. “I’ll have to think about it. One doesn’t see many perfect White-Point Stars. But for right now, a sonic trowel is calling my name.”

“I think I’ll make a sonic pen,” Ash muses. “If nothing else, it’ll come in handy when I’m writing my journals.”

“That’s my line!”

“No, seriously, River,” Clara leads her to their study, where Ash has ensconced her diaries. 

“That’s all you?” 

“More or less.” Ash grins proudly. 

“Not bad. But you might consider a more efficient storage medium.” 

“I’ve thought about digitization, but there’s something satisfying about--huh?” Ash looks, bewildered, at River’s journal.

“Bigger on the inside,” she whispers as the pages flip by in a blur.

“Ooh.”

“Guess I know what I’m getting you for next Christmas,” Clara jokes.

“Which one is that again?” Ash asks, deadly serious. 

Clara just rolls her eyes and laughs. “Speaking of traditional, I think it’s time for me to make myself a screwdriver.”


	55. River's Flat, the Moon

“Nice place; bit smaller than ours,” Ash observes. 

“It’s cozy enough,” River offers. “Not _nearly_ enough space in the wardrobe.” She grins, gesturing to a row of bottles. “Hence the nanotech.”

“Or you could just use the holographic clothes. Very convenient.” Clara smirks and cups Ash’s ass.

“Yes, if you don’t mind actually being naked,” River rolls her eyes, “around a bunch of handsy undergraduates.” Clara scowls in sympathy. “And while there is something to be said for being able to lay your lover bare with the push of a button,” she does so, brandishing her sonic trowel, “sometimes you want something a little more _substantial_.” With a quick spritz, her rather ordinary clothes are replaced by an ensemble of black leather straps and silver studs. Not to mention eight inches of black silicone.

Clara and Ash exchange jaw-dropped looks before raising their hands in surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place just after the Luna University chapter.
> 
> Also, posting schedule will be 6 this week, 6 next week, and 0 on the 16th.


	56. White Cliffs of Dover, Summer, 1940

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dover? Really? All of time and space and we're going to Dover?

Clara had been skeptical at first. Dover? Really? All of time and space and we’re going to Dover? 

She was about to tease the Doctor about his chalk fetish when she thought better of it. There were certainly compensations. 

For one thing, they had landed in a gorgeous summer’s day by any standards (let alone English standards) with the sun out and a sharp breeze blowing. For another thing, they are bobbing along in a little boat, down with the fresh salt spray. For yet another, they, like the crowds on the cliffs above, are waiting for the latest round of the Battle of Britain to commence. (“It won’t be the same without lasers on the Spitfires,” the Doctor laments. “Shut up,” she laughs; he looks at her in deadly earnest.)

And, oh, there is the Doctor, standing in the prow of the boat, wind flaring out his coat behind him and almost making it difficult for her to hear him finish Eric Johnson’s epic solo.

“You know that won’t be funny to anyone else for fifty years,” she teases him, giggling.

“But it made you laugh,” he points out, picking out ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ as he does. “And you’re the one I was playing for.” Her hand moves unconsciously closer to her thigh; be still my beating heart.

He turns away from her and scans the horizon for Stukas and Messerschmidts. Which has the unintended side effect of making her crack up laughing. “I didn’t mean that to be funny,” he offers delicately.

“Oh, no, no.” She stands and tugs on the little strap holding the sonic sunglasses to his head. “It’s just…seriously?” she breaks out giggling again.

“It’s windy! And we’re at sea!” Well, he thinks, at least he has made her laugh again. He stands stiffly beside her, watching as the Luftwaffe rolls in like a storm cloud. “You haven’t asked if there’s a risk of getting hit by a bomb or a crashing plane,” he observes flatly.

“Of course not,” she says indignantly. “I _know_ there’s a risk.” She stands close to him, taking his arm in both of hers. “But there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”


	57. The Moon, Sea of Tranquility, 1969

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor contemplates forgetting.

Sea of Tranquility, he thinks. What a load of tosh. He wonders what Armstrong would have thought if he had known the Moon was actually an egg. _One small thing for a thing. One enormous thing for a thingy-thing._ He winces. Why was it Courtney Woods whom he could remember perfectly? Not Clara (and not aliens with gray faces and black suits). Unfortunately Tasha hadn’t had any bright ideas on undoing the neural block either. 

“The entire purpose of the confession is to purge the memory,” she had reminded him. “To allow the penitent to heal and to move forward.” 

There was a time when he might have wanted that, to be able to ease himself forward. New friends, new lovers, new adventures. And he had certainly had more than his fair share of goodbyes from Clara...maybe that was the problem. He had grown used to being able to go back, to be taken back. He didn’t need closure. He needed Clara. 

He knew she was dead. But then, death had never stopped him before.


	58. Utah, 2011

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the Doctor. But probably not the one you were expecting.

Me tugs off her skates after a long day at the Diner; she’ll want to look into an intriguing rumor tomorrow, but for today her feet are too sore. Click goes the left skate. Click goes the right skate. Click goes… “The letterbox?” Given that they only materialized here yesterday, she thinks it’s not bloody likely that they’ve gotten mail. Despite her fatigue she reaches easily for the plasma shotgun behind the counter and primes it. 

But, as she slinks over to the door, she doesn’t find anything threatening: just a square blue envelope with the number ‘5’ inscribed upon it. “Doesn’t smell like Chanel.” She straightens up. “Clara, we’ve got mail. Secret admirer, maybe?” 

Clara comes out of the rear of the Diner, eyes quirked in confusion. “No, you know I always tell you; that’s the rule…” Her eyes widen as she sees the color and the shape of the envelope. She sprints over to Me and tears at the blue paper. “Coordinates?”

“If he wanted to take you on a date, he might just have asked. Come on, we’ll go in the morning.” Me looks up to a sobbing Clara. “Or we can go now. But you’re rubbing my feet before we go anywhere.”

“Deal,” Clara says, recovered from the emotional shock. 

Her jaw drops when they materialize and she opens the door. “Hello,” waves her first Doctor, chin and all. “Do I know you from somewhere? Guess not. Anyway, I’ve got a note saying I need to hitch a ride with you, from what I’m guessing is me from the future. Not sure how that’s going to work out, but what the hell? Live a little.” He bops her playfully on the nose. “Got any fish fingers in this diner of yours? Famished. I suppose not. Bloody Americans.” He cascades onto a stool and spins about. “Not like I can eat anyway, I’ve got a lunch date to catch. Some things you shouldn’t do on an empty stomach, some things you should. Forget I said that.” He turns to Clara, staring, stock-still, at him. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Not yet,” she manages. “Let’s just say it’s nice to see you again.”

“Looking forward to it,” he manages tritely. His thumb juts out. “So, any chance of bumming a ride?”

Good God, Clara thinks. She had almost forgotten her infatuation with her bowtied, tongue-tied idiot.

“I dunno,” Me quips. “Any chance of riding your bum?” 

The three of them promptly exchange a set of very meaningful and very eloquent looks. Clara is pretty sure hers says “I can’t believe you just offered to sodomize the Doctor.” 

Me’s says “Yes, yes, I know he’s the awkward, baby-faced version of your stupid space boyfriend, but he’s awfully pretty and he’s totally thinking about it, which is good because he’s going to need to get used to the pegging at some point, based on what you’ve told me.”

Whereas the Doctor is trying to convey “Oh god, I’m about to visit my dominant wife and her very possessive parents who I occasionally bed down with very quietly, and I do not need for this to turn into an orgy before we even get there, and why am I even considering letting these tiny strangers do sex-things to me? Am I looking sufficiently horrified?”

“Just kidding,” Me says glibly, aloud. “Can we get you anything?” She winks and steps behind the counter. “Off the menu, that is.” 

“I’ll, erm, be in the back,” Clara says, because while he might not know her yet, and he won’t be her Doctor for quite a while, she is still feeling the mighty urge to jump his bones. 

“Huh.” The Doctor takes the root beer and sits down as they dematerialize. “Is she feeling well?”

“Just a bit surprised, I think.” 

The Doctor nods, and sits in silence, the sunlight streaming in from their new destination. He takes a sip and pulls a face. “Needs more fizz.” He stands, patting his pockets. The rear door catches his eye. “You know, maybe I will go see if she needs any help,” he muses.


	59. Tasha Lem's Flagship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They talk. They fight. They forget the difference.

“Bad enough you have me trapped on that little rock,” the Doctor complains. “But now you want me to come visit on your slightest whim.”

“My dear Doctor, I thought you would appreciate the company. And think about all those who aren’t trapped. Or perhaps you’d rather not.” She sweeps her hand to the chessboard. “Care to play?”

“I’ve had enough of real war down there, thanks.” She cannot miss the edge in his words. 

They talk. They fight. They forget the difference.

“I’m afraid I have to get back. Daleks to fight. Christmas to save.”

With a tilt of her head, she permits him to go. “My dear Doctor,” she whispers as the door shuts behind him. “My dear, incurious Doctor. Did you ever think to wonder what Tasha Lem meant? ‘Lem,’ they gave me when I arrived at the steps of the Church, barely remembered who I was. Just means ‘woman,’ or ‘lady,’ if you’re putting on airs. But ‘Tasha’ means the lapping sound of gentle waves.” She closes her eyes, lids heavy. “We’ll meet again, my love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know that I necessarily buy into the theory that I'm hinting at here, but it works for this fic. Also, Lady of the Lake, much?


	60. Trenzalore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If a Doctor meet a Doctor, passing through the rye...

“Go away,” the Doctor calls. “I’m busy. Unless you’re Barnable with biscuits, in which case come in.”

The Doctor snorts and goes in anyway. He could be such an ass sometimes. This was probably the main reason for the First Law of Time. Not that he’d any particular success with that. Not that he gave a rat’s arse, not when he was so desperately in need. “I need some advice.”

His younger self ignores him. “I already told you, bugger off.”

“Not very polite of you. I suppose you don’t recognize me; no reason you would.”

It takes the younger Time Lord a few seconds to twig. “So, you’re my replacement, then? A space hobo?” He scoffs. “Breaking the First Law and the regeneration limit, are we? Not to mention every rule of fashion.” _Clara likes the look,_ he has to bite back and swallow. “Bit of a rebel.”

“You could say that,” he allows.

“Well, go on then, what’s wrong?” He sighs, sagging back into his chair. “Usually something fairly dire when a lot of us wind up in the same room. Can’t imagine what could be worse than being besieged by Daleks, and it doesn’t sound like you’re here to help.”

He manages a thin, sad smile; he wished he could help, but his very existence was walking a razored line right now and he didn’t dare wobble. “I’ve lost someone, someone near to my hearts. A woman.” 

“Don’t tell me who it is; I think you’ve given me enough spoilers to last a lifetime as it is.” The younger Doctor yawns; his older self knows that he can’t keep the glib routine up for long before he switches over to manic or brilliant, or both. He hides a grin as the younger version jumps up. “Look, just because I’m stuck here doesn’t mean you have to be. Go find her; figure out where you left her. I’m going to assume that I didn’t just miscount--that would be embarrassing--which means you should have a whole regeneration cycle to find her. Go on, get. All of time and space.”

“That is the problem, rather,” he replies properly. “She could literally be anywhere.”

“Blimey,” the Doctor scratches his ponderous chin. “When you lose a girl you don’t do things by halves. Is she looking for you?” Silence. “Right helpful, you are. Don’t suppose you tried looking the last place you left her?”

He is about to snap off a witty retort when his jaw clicks shut. “Oh.” Because of course, he remembers every adventure they’ve ever had, every trip they’ve ever taken. “Oh! Yes! You know, I don’t think I give you enough credit.”

“Thanks; now I know where to turn whenever I need a backhanded compliment.” But the older Doctor misses the sarcasm, already out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Peter Capaldi's Doctor doesn't get to share the screen with Matt Smith, I will be sorely disappointed. Make it so, Moffat.


	61. Prince Vullur's Birthday Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is nearly as clever as he thinks he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of six chapters posted today--no post next week, sadly. Normal schedule to resume week after next.

He can almost taste Clara Oswald now; he’s so close. But he can’t quite seem to cross that final threshold and track her down. So he took some advice, and decided to cheat. 

He plugged in the coordinates for a masquerade ball he remembered attending with her, where he remembered letting her out of his sight for what had seemed like unfathomably long stretches of time. 

He parked the TARDIS in an alcove and strolled easily out into the tableau. He had taken extra precautionary measures, since simply changing his clothes hadn’t fooled her last time. Now he was wearing a mask _and_ he had grown out a full beard. He grinned. He could get used to subterfuge.

He found her easily enough, remembering the party from the first time around. A quick little zap to the sonic sunglasses as he walked past, to keep from being detected, among other things. 

Now it was just a matter of finding a place to get her alone...Almost without realizing it, his hand slipped to a passing tray to claim a drink. Ah, he thought, recalling Thing Number 35783 he had re-learned about Clara Oswald. 

Half an hour passed in idle chit-chat (with some deranged fashion designer who wanted the Doctor’s beard to trim a mantle; he was going to shave the damned thing as soon as he figured out what it was reminding him of). Then he spotted a merrily intoxicated Clara weaving through the crowd towards the women’s bathroom. He left his conversation partner mid-sentence and strolled over to her, arriving just in time to pull her hair away from her face and steady her as she retched into a potted plant. 

“Thanks, stranger.” She accepted the cocktail napkin gratefully, wiping at her mouth. She remained on the floor for a moment, letting him see the ‘v’ of the back of her dress, vectoring sharply to the cleft of her ass. His cock throbbed. He remembered tonight, remembered planting kisses up her spine until he reached her shoulder blades, worshipping each bone of her body. 

So short, he’d whispered, entranced. Yet so beautiful. As if each inch of you was more precious for their being fewer of them. She’d not laughed at him, which was always nice. 

He wondered if she would let him, now; this him, this now. But then she looked up at him, quizzical and drunk. “You okay?”

“Do you need help?” 

“Maybe a hand up.” A gloved hand rose to meet his, and she stood, overbalancing forward until she was pressed against him. 

He ached, knowing how easy (and how very, very wrong) it would be to touch her, taste her. Instead he pressed a steadying hand to her shoulder, keeping her close just long enough for him to whisper. “I’m giving you a set of coordinates. You’ll want them later.”

“Will I?” She whispered back, voice coy and laced with alcohol. “And I don’t even know your name.”

Mentally he clobbered himself. “Not for that. You’ll understand, later. Right now, they’re encoded into this piece of crystal.” He tucks the stolen paperweight into her bag. “You’ll be able to see them with the sonic sunglasses. You’ll be able to remember when the time is right.” 

Clara had drawn back when he had said the words ‘sonic sunglasses,’ and now her eyes bored into his. “How do you… Never mind. I get the sense I just shouldn’t ask.”

“Until we meet again,” he managed, and darted away just as his past self began to approach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess I have a thing for these two at masked balls. Oops? 
> 
> Also, hopefully successful payoff of the stolen paperweight?


	62. Stormcage Containment Facility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which River has fun by herself. Probably NSFW.

River frowns and taps at her datapad. _Sorry_ , she writes, _time squall passing through. Date night will have to wait._ She sends the message off to her wives. 

A long minute passes and she receives a reply message. No text, just a photograph. Her eyes widen. And what a photograph. She checks her watch; no guards are due for another twenty minutes. She loosens her pajama bottoms and slips a hand inside. 

“You bad, bad girls,” River breathes as another photograph arrives, then another. She eases two fingertips into herself, nails trimmed and pads calloused. Christ, she thinks, she didn’t care how old Ash was, you can’t learn flexibility like that. 

Another picture. She’d have to hide this datapad before the next sweep or they’d confiscate it for sure. And another; was that a new toy? And so big? Damn this squall, she thinks, adding another finger. Her breath starts to come quicker, and so do the photographs. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she mutters, and doubles up with pleasure as she comes. She waits for her knees to stop quivering, and taps out a quick, heartfelt thanks.

 _Your turn_ , comes the cheeky reply. River just beams and rummages through her wardrobe for something a little slinkier than her tatty pajamas. After all, she wants to put on a good show before she attends to a job on Mendorax Dellora which promises to take some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. Sorry this is a few days late.


	63. Triton, 38th Century

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor pursues another lead.

The Doctor paces as the primitive human equipment parses, reconstructs, and defragments the brain scan taken from the Morpheus machines and uploaded automatically to cloud storage. 

“I’m getting close,” he says aloud.

“Was that directed at me?” Captain Nagata replies sharply. “Or do you just like talking to yourself?”

“I just need one little clue, one little piece of luck,” he continues. Nagata just shakes her head and tries to focus on the progress of the computer. 

“Hence the brain scan,” Nagata surmises. “Hell of a big clue if you can read it.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious; at least they got the rank right. I mean, it would be embarrassing if you were just _Lieutenant_ Obvious.” He tuts his head with mock-concern.

“I _will_ shoot you,” the young woman threatens.

“Leave the threats to the professionals,” he advises her, resuming his pacing. He can almost picture Clara, her smile, her gait, the curve of her shoulder. He smiles in spite of the dull surroundings and violent company. His muscles tremble with anxiousness. “Soon,” he mutters. “Soon.”


	64. The Giant's Navel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara goes for a swim and, dare I say, engages in a little navel-gazing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly triggery for things like confined spaces, drowning.

They had had to climb a series of hills--supposed to look like a reclining giant from the right angle, though they’d taken their TARDIS all around the place and Clara wasn’t buying it--to get here. Just above her was an outcropping of banded rock which did resemble a crossed pair of hands, which shaded the pool. “Supposed to go all the way down,” Clara recalls. “Fancy a dip?”

“Maybe later,” Me says, kicking off her boots.

“Suit yourself.” Clara’s down to her skin in a few minutes, and rubs her hands together in an instinctive effort to warm them before diving in.

The water is icy cold, so cold she can’t help but gasp, taking in a lungfull. She’s learned not to panic when that happens, so she just gathers herself and looks around. Not that there’s much to see--her dive has carried her far enough down that very little light is reaching her from the surface. And while she doesn’t think she’s sinking, she’s also inhaled enough water to hit neutral buoyancy, so she isn’t floating, either. It reminds her of spacewalking, drifting at will. Except the water is all around her, numbing pressure even against her eyes. 

It’s oddly soothing. Usually she has to run in order to see something new. She turns over and over, feeling her hair tangle. Wouldn’t it be nice, she thinks, to just stop running? She could see how far down the rabbit hole really went. See if she could come out on the other side. Something brushes her ankle; a fish, perhaps. Or she could just stay here, frozen betwixt and between. She didn’t need to eat or breathe; probably she wouldn’t catch hypothermia. She tumbles through the water, no longer sure which way was up and which was down. Well, she surmises, if she just inhales a bit more water, she should start to sink.

She is just about to open her mouth again when a hand takes hold of her wrist. She kicks along, speeding them back toward the surface. “You came for me.” She flutters her eyelashes at Me.

“Yeah, well,” Me hoists herself mostly out of the pool to sit at its edge, feet kicking idly in the water, “Can’t let you go and destroy the universe by dying in the wrong time and place.” She lays back on the smooth rock, skin already drying in the warm, fresh air.

“And here I thought you cared about me,” Clara jests. Me just smiles at the sky.


	65. The Caverns of Fen'daai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara and the Doctor, post-"Sleep No More." Basically just fluff but with context-dependent heartstring-twanging.

She had enjoyed it for the first week or so. Constant adventures with the Doctor with no need to stop for anything except food, sex, bathing, and those other little necessities. 

She hadn't counted on the intense physical exhaustion, but then the running, climbing, fighting, swimming all took its toll. So she started to mix in her marking, and her pleasure reading, and her Netflix queue. 

Now, of course, her eyelids were starting to droop, and she was still exhausted. But her mind was still fresh as a daisy, and she was starting to get bored.

“Why don't you take a nap?” the Doctor suggests. “Isn't that what humans usually do?”

“Can't. Sleep,” Clara stresses. She can't even find the strength to roll over and give him a symbolic tap to express her frustration.

“Well, just lie there then,” and Clara has just about gotten up the energy (really, almost!) when he continues, “and I'll tell you about the Caverns of Fen'daai. Took a trip there a few faces back.” Her eyebrow twitches with interest. He takes that as a good sign. “It's really the perfect thing for just now,” he gushes, and she takes a moment to be jealous of his energy level. “You see, humans with their inferior tolerance for radiation can't visit it—even in a hard rad suit you'd absorb a fatal dose in nano-rels.” 

“Mm,” she manages.

“I could only spend a few minutes myself,” he explains, as if to make her feel better. “But oh, that you could see them! The crystals, glowing octarine, so bright there aren't any shadows even a thousand feet down! The water seeps iridescent, dripping and splashing, sending little specks of rainbow through the air.” 

“Hang on,” she interrupts, poking a finger into his chest through pure instinct, “you remember all this from seeing it for a few minutes a lifetime ago?”

“Well, regeneration is a bit of a crapshoot,” he admits. “But I tend to remember the important things.” Even with fatigue seeling her eyes, she can feel that he is looking intensely at her. Which is weirdly arousing, she realizes.

He lays next to her, sneaking one arm under her neck to cup her shoulder in his hand, his eyes closed and other hand up, pointing, as if they are standing, looking at the caverns, him showing her the wonders of the universe one word at a time. She smiles. Maybe this isn't so bad, after all.


	66. The Diner's Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically just baking fluff.

“What do you _mean_ you don't know how to bake?”

Ash tries to look sheepish; River just looks affronted. “Raised to be an assassin, then to uni, then off on a series of remote digs, darling. When did you think I did anything so quaint as bake?”

“I knew how to bake from 1703 to about 2439.” Ash shrugs. “Then I decided I wanted to learn how to fly a starfighter, and the next thing I knew I had left cherry pie by the wayside.” Clara hopes she never lives so long.

“How do you eat?!” Clara is flabbergasted.

“I can cook,” the other two say in unison.

“Besides,” Ash adds, “it's not like you can bake either. There's a reason nobody buys souffles from the diner.”

“One of these years,” Clara mutters to herself. “Fine!” she screams, throwing up her hands with frustration and pulling out a bag of chocolate chips. “Chocolate. Chip. Cookies. The recipe from the back of the bag. Butter, flour, sugar, chocolate, eggs.” The other two look at her helplessly. “Go on then,” she commands, “start fetching things.”

It takes some coaxing, but somehow, between the three of them, they manage a fairly credible-looking batter and begin spooning it onto greased trays. “So, what do we do now?” River asks, her usual flirtatious self. 

“Well,” Ash begins, and stops to lick the batter from one of River's fingers.

“My mother always said I'd get sick if I did that,” Clara reminisces. “Somehow, I don't think salmonella is something any of us need to worry about,” and she turns on River's other hand.

“Mmm, at least the batter is tasty,” Ash teases. “It'd be a shame to ruin them now by letting them burn.” 

“I have an excellent time-sense,” River reminds them. “I'll know when they're done.”

“Is that a challenge?” Clara sets a nine-minute timer and grins.


	67. Clara's Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the Doctor's efforts to drown his sorrows in cookies. Or something.

He has always liked to work with his hands. Lately the repairs of a ship meant for a crew of six have occupied most of his time, but he wants something different. Something more...Clara.

So he materializes in her flat and heads straight for her kitchen. He resists the urge to add a wi-fi hotspot to her toaster oven and rolls up his sleeves, rummaging about for bowls, spoons, measuring cups, ingredients. He improvises the first batch of biscuits. While he waits for them to bake her microwave spontaneously begins picking up radio signals from the future. Or maybe that was his fault and it doesn’t microwave anymore. Just as well he’s taken out all of the butter to soften to room temperature already.

He nearly chips a tooth on the first biscuit, and the few crumbs he manages to flake off taste dreadful. He bins the lot and the batter, and reluctantly opens a cookbook. He thumbs through it, trying not to tear up each time he sees one of her precise, hand-written notes. “Add extra ½ tsp nutmeg,” she writes, and “Needs two fewer minutes on the front burner.” He chafes at the recipe, but by the end he has two dozen perfectly credible peanut butter cookies. 

He marvels at them; he forgets, sometimes, how nice it is to do something and know exactly what will come of it, and that it will be good. He grins at the mess he is in the middle of and starts in on toffee bars. He wishes she were here, baking alongside him (what an oddly cozy potential path _that_ led his mind down), but notes like “make sure the butter isn’t too soft” will have to suffice. He looks over at the erstwhile stick of butter, now an oozing lump. Oops, he thinks.


	68. Andromeda Gables

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quiet morning with Clara and Ash.

“Brought you some breakfast,” Clara says. “Because some of us can be arsed to get up before 10 in the morning.”

Ash yawns. “So sue me; we had a late night. And my poor old bones need their rest,” she adds sardonically. 

Clara snorts and sets the tray of tea and biscuits at the foot of the bed before sitting, fully-dressed, atop the blankets.

“You know, this is a bed and breakfast, not necessarily breakfast in bed.”

“Are you complaining?” Clara arches an eyebrow as she dips a gingersnap into her tea. “I was hoping it would be romantic.”

“Domestic, more like.” But she sips happily at the tea.

“Do you think we could manage domestic?” Clara’s eyebrows knit. “I mean, we literally live in a kitchen.”

“You aren’t going to want children, are you? Because,” she gestures at her naked body, then at Clara’s skirted groin, “well…”

“There’s tech for that.” Clara stops. “That isn’t your concern, is it?”

The taste of chocolate sours in Ash’s mouth; she swallows with difficulty. “I buried three babies during the plague. I can remember that, through all these tens of millions of years. And you want me to do that again.” She takes a sip of the bitter tea. “For you.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do. Always liked kids. And I’ve learned how to deal with loss.”

Clara looks at her with soft brown eyes, and Ash groans. “One of these days, that ruthless optimism is going to cost you.”

“Too late,” Clara reminds her. Ah yes, Ash thinks. The other hang-up to this mad scheme.

“You want to try raising kids while doing what we do?”

“We could always settle down for a while,” Clara offers. “And there’s no biological clock to worry about.”

“I’ll think about it,” Ash allows, taking another biscuit.


	69. Rigsy's Flat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor has a commission to make.

He knocks on the door of the little flat with his free hand. “Local Knowledge?” he calls in. “Where’s the miniature version?” The lad nods to the corner. “Hello again! No, you mayn’t have a biscuit; it’ll spoil your appetite and rot your…” He peers at the girl’s mouth. “Gums.” 

“You’re back,” Rigsy says at last, breaking the silence. The Doctor paces, not making eye-contact.“With...biscuits?” 

“I was hoping they would help alleviate some of the early-conversation awkwardness.” He forces a grin. “So much for that.”

“Doctor, what’s going on?” 

A few more seconds pacing, then: “I need you to paint her again. Paint her for me.”

He doesn’t question, doesn’t complain. He just wipes away a tear and points to the corner. There she is, face half in shadow but eyes bright. “Take it,” he says, and pushes away the half-hearted offer of biscuits in trade. “Haven’t any stomach now.”

“Thank you,” he whispers. Lucy cries. “No, just because your father lost his appetite even though he didn’t eat any biscuits doesn’t mean that you can have any.”

Rigsy laughs at that, and this seems to free them up. They talk for perhaps an hour, and then he says, “She died for me, you know.”

“I know.” He sighs. “People in our line of work seem to make a habit of dying for our friends. And now, I think, it’s time for me to say goodbye.” Rigsy helps him wrap up the canvas.

“Won’t you stay for dinner?” he offers.

The Doctor shakes his head. “Ate too many biscuits.”


	70. UNIT HQ, 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor finds a face he used to know.

“Doctor?!” Kate Stewart steps instinctively away from her tete-a-tete with Osgood, who blushes. “We weren’t expecting you.”

He raises an impressive eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Well, we aren’t being invaded by aliens,” Kate begins.

“And it’s been a good three months since a mad scientist has published an ominously raving screed in a peer-reviewed journal,” Osgood adds. “You don’t usually stop in just to say hello to us.” 

“Oh. I suppose not.” He continues into the room and sets down a plate. “I brought biscuits; try one, they’re good.”

“Did you make these?” Kate asks hesitantly. He nods eagerly.

“Anyway, I’m here to see you,” he turns to Osgood. “The you who used to be Clara; not the you who’s snogging her boss.” Kate chokes, sending biscuit crumbs flying. “Is she okay? You’d best check on her; see if she needs resuscitation.” Osgood’s face crimsons.

“I’m fine, thank you.” Kate straightens up. “Osgood, see if you can find your other half.”

“My _other_ other half.” Osgood smirks on her way out.

Twenty minutes later he is alone with the Zygon formerly known as Bonnie. “What was she like?” he asks brusquely.

“Oh, Doctor,” her borrowed eyes sadden. “I’ve been expecting this visit. But I’m not going to replace her.”

“Don’t be daft,” he snorts. As if _anyone_ could do that. He bites this back. “I just want you to help me remember her.”

“I’d warn you the past is a dangerous place, but then, I suppose Time Lords know that,” she begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: my google docs auto-correct wants to change it from the Doctor having brought biscuits to having bought biscuits. So Kate isn't the only one skeptical of the Doctor's baking ability.
> 
> Also, oops, my Kate/Osgood shipper reared its ugly head.


	71. Home of Myrtle Oswald, Lancashire, England

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is the bearer of bad news. Turns out he's the one in for a surprise.

He has dreaded this trip. Has fretted over what he was going to say, marking up countless index cards in the process. “Hello. My name is the Doctor, and I am the best friend-slash-traveling companion-slash-spouse of your granddaughter. I regret to inform you of your loss.”

“My loss?” Mrs. Oswald staggers away from the door as if struck. “What do you mean?”

“Clara,” he offers gently. “She’s gone.”

“Oh, well, of course I know she’s going traveling.” Her hand leaves the center of her chest to gesture to her telephone. “She just called to say that she and a girlfriend were off to see the world before settling down.” The Doctor freezes and mentally crumples his script. “Such a thoughtful girl! And so brave; I don’t think I could have done that when I was her age.”

“No,” the Doctor agrees.

“But she certainly deserves it,” Mrs. Oswald natters on, “after everything she’s done and after everything she’s been through.” She pauses. “Who did you say you were again?”

“Doctor John Disco. Clara’s best friend-slash-traveling companion-slash-spouse.”

She looks him up and down. “Much more respectable than the daft Swedish boy.” She hesitates. “A trifle soon after what happened with Danny, if you don’t mind me saying.”

A lump forms in his throat. “I wish I might have known him better,” which was true, in the end, even if he had been jealous even before he’d realized it. “And, you know, time passes differently when you are young.” 

“Hmpf, you hardly get to lecture me about that. Honestly, John Disco? John Big Band, more like.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “But as long as you take care of her, I suppose I have no quarrel with you.”

“Always,” he promises. “Come to think of it, I should probably make arrangements to catch up with Clara. My Clara. My wife. My wife, Clara. Told her to go on ahead; had some... _things_...to take care of. She, ah, didn’t say where she was?” Mrs. Oswald fixes him with a stare. “Not even a little clue? No, I suppose she wouldn’t. Really must go; dreadfully sorry to intrude.” He backs speedily towards the door.


	72. Blackpool, a graveyard, 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor says goodbye.

“I thought you might appreciate these more than flowers,” the Doctor begins, setting down a tray of biscuits next to her gravestone. “I was baking in your flat. Used up all your sugar. Sorry about that, but I don’t expect you’ll mind. Anyway, I made too many. Ate most of them. I’ve been sharing; you should be proud of me.”

He crumbles a cookie for the birds. “Even made a few Jammy Dodgers for auld lang syne.” His throat forces out a laugh. 

“What’s ‘auld lang syne’ mean?” puzzles a small voice from behind. “I know we sing about it at New Year’s,” Maebh continues as he whirls around, “but nobody ever stops to explain it. I think they don’t know either.”

“I think you’re right,” he confides in her. Fortunately, he knows, because the TARDIS has stopped translating Scots since he regenerated. “As it happens, it means ‘Old long since,’ or ‘times gone by.’” She nods her earnest thanks. He crouches down to her eye-level. “Biscuit?”

“Thank you.” She munches thoughtfully on a snickerdoodle. “I miss her too,” she says at last. “Not as much as you miss her, or as much as I missed my sister,” she offers candidly. 

“So have you come to say goodbye, too?”

“That was what her funeral was for,” she says, not acknowledging the fact that he wasn’t there. “I’m just here to say hi.” She smiles. “I expect she gets lonely. And sometimes, people come back.” She smiles up at him. “You taught me that, remember?”

“Yes.” He stands. “Sometimes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the 'biscuit arc,' for those of you keeping score at home.


	73. The Drum, Caithness, Scotland, 2119

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor considers what he has lost, and what it means that he is trying to find it again.

Nominally he was supervising four UNIT techs as they excised the Faraday cage containing the souls of the dead so that it could be boosted out into space. But even by pudding-brain standards this was simple enough work, and the sergeant seemed to have things well in hand. 

That left his mind free to wander. He looked over at the cage. That could have been him in there. Clara thought it was, instead of a very clever hologram. Instead he was on the outside looking in, wondering where his soul had gotten to. 

O’Donnell’s shade stared out at him with the black voids that had replaced her eyes. _Tell her before it’s too late_ sprang unbidden to his mind, and close on its heels came _If you love me in any way, you’ll come back to me_. 

Well, he had come back to her. He was, in fact, still coming back to her. He shifted uncomfortably as he considered what this might mean, not certain if he could bear either answer.

He sighed. “Mind that laser cutter, Isringhausen.”


	74. The Confession Dial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor has a secret to tell...

It's getting close, he thinks, and I'm getting closer to 12 and whatever is held there. Still a few steps ahead, still a few seconds left of the time he's bought, one secret at a time. He wets his lips with his tongue. He can hear the flies buzzing, the Veil drawing near. He draws away, backing down yet another endless stone hall as it shuffles towards him. 

“I've been saving this one,” he says. “Best for last and all that.” His lips go dry again with his bravado and his terror.

“But since the only thing that matters is getting back to her, I may as well.”

“I love Clara Oswald.” His words speed up as he talks. “I think I did from the moment I heard her voice at the Dalek Asylum. Loved her enough to let her go then. But now I'm _never_ letting her go. I'm coming for her, and I'll tear your world apart to get her back.”

The Veil continues to advance towards him. “Not enough, then,” he jokes, backpedaling as he blusters. “I don't think I realized it at first, Lord, no. What an idiot I was,” he smiles fondly. “But I hardly think there was a question as to the matter when I regenerated. First face this face saw and all that. I mean, last time I at least had a few minutes to crash the TARDIS and spelunk my way out before I saw Amelia Pond. But her! I never stood a chance. She stitched herself into my very time-stream, watering the core of my very being with her selfless love. What did I think was going to happen?” He barks a short laugh. My Clara, he thinks. 

“It seems so obvious now, in hindsight, like every word, every action was a declaration of love. I just wish we had said something sooner...wish I hadn't been afraid.”

The Veil halts in an eyeblink. “Oh, thank God,” the Doctor mutters. “I was afraid I would have to get into pornographic detail.” And he turns and sprints down the hall.


	75. Temple of Hastrenne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara and Me each make an important decision.

“Let’s see,” Clara consults her guidebook. “Ah, the Temple of Hastrenne. Goddess of truth. Supposed to have phenomenal bas-reliefs inside.” She looks up at the structure and its door, a singular, stupendous slab of marble. “They say you have to utter your true name for it to open.”

“You must be kidding me,” Me snorts. 

“Come on, it’s probably just a legend,” Clara says. 

“Says the woman who hasn’t lived long enough to forget everything she ever was.”

“And I never will.” Clara stops suddenly as she realizes what she’s blurted out. “No, I never will. Look, I’ve lived about thirty years. My brain’s in good shape, and it won’t age, thanks to being time-looped or whatever. I can probably hold another hundred years, maybe one-twenty.” She nods contentedly. “That’s long enough. But so help me, I am not forgetting the people I care about most.”

“Even me?”

“Especially Me,” Clara says. “Come on, who says that isn’t your name? I mean, it was a little weird at first. But people change who they are. Nothing wrong with that.” 

“Thank you,” Me says. “But you’re right, it is weird. I’m not just Me anymore.” Her hand twines with Clara’s. “We’re us.”

Clara shifts her stance, a little giddy. “What about...Ash?”

“I like it.”

“Maybe Ash Oswald one of these days?”

Ash smiles, and flushes, and follows Clara into the temple.


	76. Gallifrey, the Cloisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara and the Doctor have an audience. 
> 
> Set during Hell Bent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that pornographic detail the Doctor was talking about two chapters ago? Little bit here. Probably not work-safe, but not terribly explicit. Also kind of cracky, so, y'know. Is there a "Reluctant Voyeurism" tag yet? Because there's about to be.

“You have to admit, it is rather impressive. In a tawdry sort of way.”

“Disgusting. Ma'am.”

The General quirks a small smile at her subordinate. “Do you want to be the one to force them to stop?”

“Rassilon, no! Even if I could slip past the Wraiths,” he shudders, “I'd have to _touch_ them, all...sticky, and _sweaty_.”

“You might change your mind,” the General offers genially. “I expect they'll be at it for quite a while, especially given that the female doesn't need oxygen anymore.”

“You aren't _enjoying_ this, are you?” The other officer had thought he had reached the depths of his disgust—the Doctor's perversion was something of an open secret among the Time Lords, but then, he was a renegade. 

“Only in a purely academic fashion. For instance, I hadn't realized that human anatomy was capable of flexing quite like that.” She swallows a smirk as the junior officer gags. 

“I need some fresh air,” he attempts after a few moments which may be the most awkward silence in the venerable history of the Time Lords, not that he cares to consult the Matrix to find out for certain.

“And be the one who lets them slip away?” One eyebrow arches. He’s an insufferable ass, but she probably shouldn't enjoy torturing him so.

He looses a string of oaths. It doesn't even slow the pace of their...coupling. “To think,” he mutters, “I respected that man as an officer and a war hero.”

“Makes you wonder if he's on to something,” she teases. Other than his fifth orgasm. She doesn't actually have any particular interest in acquiring her own zoo of mayflies, but there has to be some sort of beneficial effect on the Doctor. Other than the increased cardiovascular stamina, evidently. “I just hope she doesn't catch her death of chill. That would be dreadfully embarrassing.”

“Oh, yes, _dreadfully_.” He rolls his eyes. “Absolutely mortifying.” He risks another glance. “But if the perspiration is anything to go upon, she's plenty warm for now.” 

“Mm, he's finally come up for air,” she observes. 

“Maybe they're slowing down,” he hopes.

She cranes an ear. “No such luck.” She grins as his face falls. “I think they're just telling each other how much they love each other.” Maybe that was the key, she thinks just as Clara takes the Doctor's member in her hand and causes it to ejaculate onto her. 

The other Time Lord retches into a corner as the lovers giggle and wipe her clean with a handkerchief before starting in on the next round. He looks back just in time to watch the Doctor rub lube into his erect flesh. “By Omega, you'd think that thing would be slimy enough...” his voice trails off in horror. “He's not going to...”

“Apparently he has.” The General inspects Clara's facial features as the Doctor ruts against her. “Quite enjoyably, too.”

“Maybe I'll let the Cloister Wraiths take me,” he mutters. “At least that way I wouldn't be suffering alone.”

She whistles and maintains her vigil in the dank crypt. Another hour or so and she'll let someone relieve him.


	77. TARDIS Storage Facility, Gallifrey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What goes around comes around. At the start of a new regeneration cycle, the Doctor finds himself back at the beginning, so to speak.

He’s done this before. Stolen a TARDIS and the one person he cared about and run away from it all. Away from everything he knew or was supposed to respect. Left Gallifrey in the rearview.

But then, he’d let Susan go, too. And, oh, how it had cost him when finally he was forced to return. He blinks away a tear as he peers around a corner. Clear; he sprints to the next alcove. He grins; it feels weirdly familiar. 

It was strange, he thinks; the longer he lived, the more ‘forever’ seemed like an illusion. And now here he is, back at the beginning, first of his new regenerations. Maybe that was the secret to forever: living in a circle. 

His mind skips a track and he thinks of Clara, her round face, her round eyes. (This, perhaps, should not have come as a surprise to him.) There, he thinks, were circles he could live in. He smiles, and his hand brushes a brass key. A nearby TARDIS responds, and he goes off in a grand spirit of adventure.


	78. Conceptual Space, a pantry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ships gonna ship.

She had only had them aboard for a short time, but Dinah could sense the link between Idris’s Thief and her Pilot. Could see the silver of their threads stream through time and space, braiding together like the tails of comets. She frowns; the threads are being pulled apart. That was silly, she thought, when it would be so easy to arrange for them to leave on their own after a short while longer. Perhaps Idris would be able to help. Friends were nice that way.

She explained the problem as clearly as she could, during which time Idris remained silent but paced frenetically. “Can you help?”

“But what about my Child and my Thief?” asked Idris from atop a table. “Or your Old One?”

“You just like my Old One because she killed my Pilot,” Dinah grumps.

“I used to, but not anymore, but I still have done.” Idris looks abashed.

“I suppose I can forgive that.” Dinah contemplates her navel, letting possibility flow over her eyelids. Idris does a headstand, her skirt billowing about her, until all her fluid rushes to her feet.

“Do you think they’d be happy together? All of them? Or would you rather go skipping?”

“I think they might, but we could go skipping anyhow.”

“No, we can’t; I don’t want to anymore.” She sits down suddenly. “Shall we arrange for them to be together, then?”

“Oh, yes; that will make for a pleasant afternoon. Tea?”

“Gin.”

“Yes,” Dinah agrees, reaching onto her top shelves. “It will be nice to have them all together.”


	79. Bridge of Birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Celestial Intervention Agency is playing head games.

“We know what you’re doing,” the tall androgyne in the dark robe intones. Typical CIA bullshit, he thinks, lip twisting. He ignores the speaker. “It won’t work. Even with two TARDISes you can’t bring her back.”

He waits, one, two, three, four heartbeats. He mulls his options: stony defiance or flip and cavalier? A punch to the nose would be appropriately subtle. Let the fucker stew a while longer, he decides. Not like he was paying any attention anyway.

“You’ll destroy everything, everyone, all your friends.” Imploring now. That’s cute, he thinks. “The very fabric of reality is at stake!”

“Didn’t bother you lot during the Time War,” he remarks. He runs his hands down the breast of his jacket, layered like armor over his cardigan and shirt.

“That was a matter of survival!” The Doctor merely inclines his head, a cold gleam in his eye. 

“If you won’t listen to reason, then--” 

“Hai!” He cuts the operative off with a disabling blow to the solar plexus; the staser pistol splashes harmlessly into the water below. “Don’t think that I’ll ever stop. And don’t think that I’ll ever lose her.”

The operative lurches off, doubled over as if in pain, concealing a smile. “Does he suspect?” asks the controller.

“That we are manipulating him? Or that the web of causality has ‘reversed polarity?’ as he so idiotically puts it.”

“Either.”

“No, I do not believe so.”

“Good,” the controller informs his field agent. “Because it seems that the parameters have been altered: if Clara Oswald and the Doctor never meet again, the fabric of time will be irreparably damaged when she dies at the wrong coordinates.”

“Time heals,” offers the operative.

“Hopefully it is already healing,” the controller prays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title shamelessly stolen from novel of the same name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_of_Birds). No resonances meant; just liked the way the phrase sounded.


	80. Luna City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara thinks she's tracked down the Doctor, and the Doctor tracks down Clara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In order for the confusion paid off here (and started rather earlier) to make sense, this Clara has forgotten what River looks like, probably as a result of trauma-induced amnesia after flinging herself into the Doctor's time-stream, since the only time Clara and River meet was just before that event.

“Hello, Doctor,” Clara greets the blonde woman with a grin. All her hard work chasing down leads of a mysterious time-traveler in this sector had finally paid off.

“Sorry, still an undergraduate; I just look more mature,” she bounces her curls, “despite the hair. Can I help you?”

“You don’t remember me?” Clara sags. 

“I don’t think we’ve met, and I’d like to think I’d remember you.” River frowns as a clock chimes. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve got to run or I’ll miss my seminar. Maybe we’ll get a drink sometime?” She offers politely but insincerely.

“A drink sounds good,” Clara mutters to herself, and stalks off the nearest bar. She was so sure that regeneration would have cured the neural block.

“You’re right, you know.”

Clara startles, spilling her wine on the booth. “Sorry, what?” She turns to try to find the speaker.

“Don’t,” he cautions her. “Some things aren’t meant to be seen.” 

“Oookay…” Clara turns to face her wine, away from the voice behind her and the partition separating them. If this person, whoever he is, wants to play his little game, she’ll play along. As long as it suits her. “Right about what?”

“Regeneration. Did the trick.” 

Ice would have run through her veins if her blood was still pumping. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

“Telepathic link.” She can almost feel him, back to back.

“So you know who I’m looking for?”

“Very well.” The piped-in music changes tracks. “I know he means a great deal to you, and you to him. I know it feels like everything is conspiring to keep you apart--and you’re right, by the way. But that’s changing. And I know that he will always have your back.”

He waits for that to sink in. “Doctor?” She bites her lip, waiting for the reply.

“Yes.” 

It takes every ounce of courage she has not to fling herself into his arms. “Is this all we’re allowed, then? Little meetings in bars?”

“For now.” She can picture the cryptic smile on either of her Doctors’ faces. “River--that was who you just saw, by the way--was always very careful about spoilers. But I’m going to give you a big one because you need it, now more than ever. Right now--for you--the forces holding the universe together seem to think that the easiest way to get you back to Trap Street is if we never meet again.”

“But that’s changing, you said?”

“Slowly. Tipping from one equilibrium point to another.” He waits for her to her to make the connections on her own.

“So you’re saying that, at some point in my future, the universe is literally trying to push us back together?”

She can sense his grin. “Mm-hm.”

“But not yet?”

A deep sigh. “You’re not ready yet, and I’ve already lived...whatever will be.” He delicately skirts around any concrete revelations. “Sometimes, the quest is half the fun. Until we meet again, my Clara.”

She can’t help it; she jumps up on the bench and looks over the partition. Nothing. “Damnit!” Most of the pub’s patrons turn and stare at her. “Nothing to see here,” she mutters. She climbs down and chugs the rest of her wine before leaving. She has an equilibrium to upset.


	81. London, 2040s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara meets a former student.

It’s been ten years for her; closer to thirty for London if the newspapers are to be believed. (Secretly she hopes they aren’t: PM Courtney Woods beggars belief.) “I’ve seen wonders here on Earth,” she echoes, but she’s had her five minutes and the reminisce is met only with a wry laugh.

“It is you,” a woman says behind her, more pleased than surprised. 

Clara turns. “Maebh?” The long red hair is flecked with white, but her former student is unmistakable. 

“That’s me.” She closes another step with Clara. “I rather don’t think I’m seeing things, am I? You have come back.” She giggles. “And now I’m older than you are.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this; I’m not back to stay. I’m still dead, back in 2016.”

“I won’t tell. But please, let’s have lunch? I’m sure we have plenty to catch up on.”


	82. Darillium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know who you remind me of?

“Not worried about clogging up your hearts?” River teases the Doctor. They were a few months into their ‘night’ on Darillium and her hubby had suggested a more casual night out. (She preferred the look of the red velvet, but she was at least looking forward to snuggling him in that hoodie. But then, his fashion sense had long since stopped offending her or surprising her.) “Something on your mind?” She asks. He hasn’t answered her question and his eyes are wandering.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” he says at last.

“So you invited them to a diner?”

“Don’t be ridiculous; she works there. She’s a waitress.” He opens the door for her. “I invited them here.” She has just enough time to draw in a baffled breath--how is this the _same_ diner from Utah?--when he calls out a name. “Clara?”

Angry tears are in her eyes as she turns to the Doctor. “Is this your way of getting back at me for Hydroflax and Ramone? Rubbing my nose in my second and third wives? What’s next? Is Urina Zee going to join us for milkshakes?”

“What? Who?” He turns to her, baffled.

“Urina Zee,” she repeats. “Gymnastics champion of Omicron 3? My first wife?”

“And voted number 7 on the ‘Hottest female athlete in the Omicron Cluster’ list. Jealous!” Ash interjects. She doffs her chef’s apron and strides over to the not-quite-bickering couple. “Nice to see both of you again.” She winks at the Doctor and plants a kiss on River’s cheek. “And before you get any ideas, just remember that the front walls are mostly glass. And your friend is shooting daggers at you.”

“Your _wife_ is shooting daggers at you.” River corrects.

“ _Our_ wife is shooting daggers at you,” corrects Clara. “Did someone say something about milkshakes, by the way?” 

Ten minutes later they are sharing a booth, and things have warmed up despite the frosty drinks. “So you can’t travel together anymore?” River asks. Clara and the Doctor both nod. “So then don’t travel.” She bites her lip, knows what she is about to offer, what she is going to share. “As it happens, we’re planning on staying put for twenty-four years or so. If, you know, you’d want to join us.”

Clara’s heart flutters by sheer force of will. “That...might be nice.”

“Might be dead boring,” Ash yawns. “Can we at least make one trip a week?” Clara shakes her head. Once a week was where it had started. “One a month?” Slowly, all four of them nod consent. “Well, that was easy.” She leans back on the bench. “So who wants to fuck? Got a whole TARDIS in back.”

That explains a lot, actually, River thinks. The Doctor sprays the table with banana milkshake. “Maybe take things a little slow,” she offers diplomatically.


	83. The Diner's genetics lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to make a baby.

“I just can’t believe it,” the Doctor gushes. “You’re alive.”

“Of course I’m alive,” Clara laughs. “What, did you think I was going to pine away without you?” She kisses him, and he kisses her back, warming her within his jacket. She presses against him, hiding her face. “May have fucked your wife. Wait until we’re far enough away the others and I’ll make it up to you?” 

As it happens, they are just outside the Diner’s gene lab when Clara finally feels they’ve gotten far away enough from the other two. “Doctor?” she tugs him by the arm to face her. “Let’s make a baby.”

“Clara, what a beautiful idea!” He lets her lead him inside, and she sits impishly on a bunk and unbuttons her blouse. 

“And now to secure the genetic material,” he announces, and jabs her abdomen, then his own. He pulls the results up on a nearby terminal and begins to work. Really very comforting to be back in a lab. Very soothing. And given what he was up to, very...arousing.

“Ahem,” Clara interrupts. He turns to find her in her lingerie. Very, very arousing. “Not _quite_ what I had in mind.”

“Ah.” He reconsiders his plan for the next few moments and begins to disrobe.

Their lovemaking is quick, frantic, needy. The bed in the medlab might be the first convenient flat surface with a bit of privacy, but that doesn’t make it the most comfortable. And it certainly doesn’t mean that they haven’t needed this. “So, were you being serious about actual baby-making?” She shrugs on his dress shirt, doesn’t bother with buttons. 

“Of course.”

“Because it’s hard to tell sometimes with you, is all.” Her feet dangle, heels drumming nervously against the metal. “And, y’know, functionally dead.”

His hand reaches in, warm with exertion, and his palm presses against her abdomen. “We can make it work. Might have to implant a bit of tech, is all.” The fingers of his other hand comb lovingly through her tousled hair.

 _We can make it work_. “And what about you?”

His hand snags as it makes another pass. “Of course.” He plants a kiss on her forehead. “Since Lucy, really.” 

“Never thought you would be the type, not anymore.” Not after... _My children and grandchildren are missing, and, I assume, dead._

“Whole new regeneration cycle,” he offers. “New lease on life. From one point of view, I’m younger than I’ve been in a long, long time. It might finally be time to put the past behind me.” _And start mourning a new set of losses_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote stolen from Death in Heaven.
> 
> Also my headcanon is that their moment of squee over Lucy in Face the Raven is really the first time they ever seriously consider settling down and making babies; before that, they're basically at most passionate adrenaline junkies. 
> 
> Also nod to Arthurian heroines who pine away in the absence of their menfolk.


	84. Annifogg Transit Archive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which River and Clara watch a home movie and have a heart-to-heart talk.

One of the great mysteries of the forty-eighth century: what happened to the Orient Express? 

Of course, by the fifty-second century, they had recovered the flight recorder from the famed train. And if you happened to be a curious time-traveler who didn’t mind sneaking ahead a few hundred years or breaking into the secure facility where it was held to find out what went wrong, well, your name might be River Song.

“Almost too easy,” she notes tersely as she leaves, tucking the device into her bag. “Don’t worry,” she calls over her shoulder to the approaching guards. “I’ll bring it back when I’m done with it.” She blows a kiss before activating her vortex manipulator. 

“The lights are dimmed and the popcorn’s popped,” she announces to the empty room as the security footage begins to play. Her old man has taken Ash for their monthly jaunt. Clara is somewhere around their bungalow, she knows; the Diner materialized out back an hour ago.

There isn’t any sound, of course. Not that she needs it. Everything she needs to know is written on their faces. She lets out a hiss of breath.

“Smells good in here,” Clara notes with characteristic perkiness. “Didn’t take you for the silent film buff. Have you seen any with Buster Keaton? He’s a genius.” She plunks herself down on the sofa next to River and has just dipped a hand into the bowl of popcorn when she realizes what they are watching. “Oh. Erm.” 

River cuts her off, tackling her and pressing a pillow down over her face. {You know I don’t need to breathe, right?} Clara signs to her after several embarrassing minutes of not smothering.

“I hate you,” River says, pulling the pillow away.

“No, you don’t.” Clara lays a hand on her shoulder. “Hey. I know we’re new at this, but come on. Let’s talk it out.”

“ _You seduced my husband_.” River practically shouts through gritted teeth.

“Okay, I could see where you might get that impression. From the slinky dress, and the way I’m clinging to his arm, and the looks we’re giving each other, and I am _really_ not helping my case right here.” Deep breath, Oswald. “Yes, I loved him. And I expect he loved me. If it counts for anything, it took us a long time to realize that and to admit it to each other.” 

“Oh, yes, that makes it much better.” Her voice is white-hot with rage.

“What I’m trying to say is this isn’t some quick fling; I had to lose _so much_ before I realized what I had, and then we had to work _so hard_ to make it work, because neither of us realized how much love we were capable of. I don’t care if that isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. And you should know--my god, you should know--that we both love you as well.” She is standing, fists clenched; when did that happen? River giggles at her display of passion; she can’t help but laugh as well. “And, erm, may have thought you were dead at the time, if that helps. Or is that too big of a spoiler? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, says the girl on her last heartbeat. Christ, I am a gibbering mess.”

Mercifully, River shuts her mouth with a kiss.

“I was not expecting that.” She licks the butter from her fingers, watches as River’s eyes flick down to her fingertips. “Wanna hatefuck?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Ninety minutes later, a satiated Clara rolls onto her belly. There are still silk scarves tied to her ankles, but otherwise she hasn’t a stitch on. “Not that I’m complaining, because that was incredible, but where did that come from? Thought we were kind of okay, what with the whole ‘being married’ thing.”

River gives the question the time it deserves. “It’s the difference between knowing and _knowing_.” Clara nods, stifling her curiosity. “I know that he runs around with a string of very pretty people.” She brushes a fingertip to Clara’s nose. “But that doesn’t strike you the same way as seeing your dearest love, the man with whom you’re never quite sure where you stand, seeing him _besotted_ with a girl young enough to be your granddaughter, well…” Her voice trails off, and she has to force herself to stop counting ways of killing Clara with what’s at hand. “And I know it’s terribly hypocritical of me--me of the eight husbands, five wives, four spouses of indeterminate gender. But himself is a bit of a serial monogamist--only so much room, even in a bigger on the inside box. So, well, when I saw you with his hearts in the palms of your hands…”

“Were we that obvious?” Clara covers her eyes and looks down.

“Just a bit.” She cups Clara’s face fondly, thumb ghosting over her lips. “But you’ve certainly made it up to me, and shown me the error of my ways.” Her other hand goes to her ear as the TARDIS materializes. “Maybe I should demand the same from them.”

“I’ll just watch, if it’s all the same.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Mummy on the Orient Express. You thing of beauty. You smouldering cloud of sexual tension.


	85. The Gilded Swallow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time River and Clara properly meet.

She can’t deny that it’s a good position. Professor Labouchere is one of the best, and the university is prestigious enough. 

On the other hand, she’s the professor’s assistant, which means there are papers to grade. She sighs and waves to the waitress to bring her another round. This batch of students is apparently genetically incapable of forming a complete sentence, and she’s only on her second glass. Usually she has to be a lot drunker for syntax to start failing. Speaking of which, she signals for the girl to bring out the bottle.

“Mind if I join you?” Without waiting for her to reply, the young brunette takes the opposite bench of the booth. She plunks down her own stack of marking and a pint of cider from the bar. “I wouldn’t intrude, usually, but there are only so many quiet tables, and I thought maybe we could commiserate over the failures of the modern student to construct an adequate paragraph.”

River snorts. “I’ll drink to that.” Glass clinks against pewter. 

They drink to that, and to each howler they come across, and to the enormous plate of nachos Clara springs for. River is pretty sure the cumulative GPA’s of their respective classes are going down as their BAC’s are going up. What the hell, she thinks. They deserve it, and I deserve some more wine.

“You know,” Clara laughs, “I don’t think I even told you my name. Clara Oswald. Used to teach more regularly, now just filling in for old times’ sake.”

“River Song.” A detail takes a moment to reach safe harbor in the sea of wine flooding her brain. “Old times’ sake? From what, a year ago?”

“I’m older than I look.” Clara attempts insouciant, thinks she winds up at pretentious. “What are you teaching?”

“TAing for an archaeology professor.” Clara nods. “Please tell me that wasn’t just a polite nod.”

“No, no, that’s really cool.” Clara leans in and winks at her. “Ever wish you could visit the past?” 

River plays dumb, like she doesn’t have a stolen Vortex Manipulator in her bag. “I don’t know that I’d want to revisit the past; I didn’t really know my parents as well as I might like.” Why is she telling this to a complete stranger? One part of her brain rages. Extremely drunk! Replies another part.

“I lost my mother when I was young,” Clara admits. “And it’s been far too long since I’ve seen my family. But there’s more to the universe than just them.” She hesitates on the last word, like she means anyone other than the Doctor.

“Please tell me we aren’t going to start crying on each others’ shoulders. Because I was just starting to like you.”

“No, no, definitely not.” Clara straightens up. “Meet again sometime? I should be in town for a little while yet.”

“I’d like that.” River smiles warmly.


	86. The Diner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically just fluff.

“Breakfast?” Ash asks.

“We’re in a diner and you’re Scottish,” River says, turning to the Doctor. “Fry something.” She regrets this instantly as the only one of the quartet who actually has to watch her figure. She looks, not for the first time, at Clara with jealousy in her heart.

“Stephen Fry something,” the Doctor mutters, but sets the flattop heating. “Bacon,” he says to a grinning Clara. “Eggs.” He cracks most of them onto the bacon-greased metal, but saves a few to scramble in a bowl with a bit of milk.

“What, an omelet too?” River asks.

“Cinnamon rolls.” He ignores her, in the zone now.

“We’re right here,” Clara jests, but hands him a tray of day-old pastries. He looks baffled at her, but bisects them, dips them in the egg mixture, and sets them sizzling on the cooking surface. 

“Be still, my heart,” Ash breathes. “Definitely adding that to the menu.” She runs a hand along Clara’s waist, knows better than to touch the Doctor while he’s focused, especially so close to an open, hot surface. “You didn’t say he could cook. Any more secrets I should know?”

“We might all be married to each other, but I think we’re still entitled to a few secrets apiece,” River teases.

“Well, not all married.” The Doctor pauses, looks sheepishly at Ash. “We could do something about that.”

Ash blinks, long and slow, as the Doctor, on pins and needles, flips the french toast. “That was the most terrible proposal I have ever heard.” She plants a saucy kiss on his cheek. “Lucky for you, it’s also the most terrible proposal I’ve ever accepted.” The others cheer as the Doctor reddens.


	87. Mount Knarchar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara Oswald is a terrific liar. Layer. Both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably nsfw.

Clara’s on top of the world. That isn’t a metaphor; literally, she’s on the tallest mountain on the planet, basking in the steamy air rising above a slow lava trickle. Of course, she also feels pretty proud of herself. And deservedly so, she thinks, grinning at an exhausted River. She watches the Doctor and Ash finish.

“Christ, but you’re a handful.” He sighs, satisfied.

“A handful’s all you need,” she replies, jutting her breasts wantonly at them.

“Oi!”

“Sensitive subject?” River asks, finger tracing lazy circles on Clara’s hip. 

“You know who had sensitive breasts?” They turn towards the Doctor. “Saint Teresa of Avila. Ah, now there was a girl who could work herself into divine ecstasy without touching herself below the waist…” 

“You could show a bit of sensitivity yourself,” Clara huffs.

“Well, if you insist…” He rolls over onto his side. “Left thigh, just below my arsecheek. Surprisingly tender.”

“That is _not_ what I meant!” The Doctor instinctively dodges so that he is lying on his back. 

“It’s just…” Clara hesitates, doesn’t dare ruining the moment, “they’re so small,” she finishes awkwardly.

“Are they?” The Doctor peers closely at them. “I had never noticed.”

“For once, your complete cluelessness has actually led to you paying me a compliment instead of an insult,” she needles him playfully. He looks up at her, torn between wounded and proud. “Sorry,” she apologizes.

“Anyway, no complaints about the girls from me,” River says. “Besides, size isn’t everything. Especially when you’re trying to run.” She gives Clara’s breasts a friendly cup.

“Hate to be the gloomy pragmatic one and ruin the lovefest for Clara’s perky little boobies, but, erm, speaking of running…” Ash cocks her head toward the lava trickle, which has blossomed into a proper stream and is now flooding over its banks. “Time to go.”


	88. The Diner's Laundry Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Viking Formerly Known As Ashildr has self-esteem issues.

“There,” Clara says with satisfaction, and shuts the washer door. “I think that’s everything.” Where everything was one set of silk sheets, four silk pillowcases, her dress, and a throw rug. She sneezes. “Ash? You alright?”

The erstwhile Viking punches the empty dryer, wearing nothing but a robe. She’d had to wash out her undergarments before they’d stained. And not in a good way. “It’s just, I really wanted this to be good for you.” She pouts. “Put a lot of effort into planning this evening.”

“I know.” Clara wraps a comforting arm around Ash. “I do really like the smell of jasmine. And the allergy meds are finally kicking in.” 

“You might have mentioned you were allergic to the flowers. Y’know, before I sprinkled the petals all over the bed. And myself. And your favorite set of skimpies.” Ash forces a laugh. 

“Sorry.” Clara holds up her other hand. “I did manage to salvage the rest of the bottle of wine, at least.” That had been one of her favorites, too, and Ash had rather thoughtfully poured them each a glass to share, with the bottle close to hand. That had been about when Clara had realized she was sitting on a bed of jasmine petals, and promptly had a coughing and sneezing fit.  
Ash helps herself to a plug. “That’s something, anyway.” she mutters. 

“But not the only thing,” Clara stage-whispers, backing Ash against the thrumming washer. “I do have a very pretty woman who apparently wants very badly to please me, and who knows just how much I like taking control.” Ash moans as Clara’s fingers undo the sash of her robe; the clingy fabric drags across her sensitive skin as the robe opens. Clara’s mouth captures hers in a kiss; Clara can taste the wine on her tongue before moving her mouth lower. “Very pretty,” she repeats as the robe puddles to the floor.

“And I do want to please you,” Ash agrees. “Sorry things didn’t go as planned.”

“Fucking up other people’s plans is part of the job description,” Clara reminds her. “I’m just neurotic about my own plans.”

“Somebody has to keep us on task.”

“Speaking of which.” Clara hops up onto the dryer and guides her panties over her hips. “Not that you need to do or be anything special. Well, _more_ special.”

“Thanks.” Ash’s voice is quiet. Hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear that, she thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of the start of an Ash-centric mini arc


	89. Ashildr's Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor looks for one thing and finds another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This, obviously, is set much earlier than the recent post-foursome stories.

He’s too late. Everyone who knew Clara has long since passed on. “What about Ashildr?” he asks.

“The storyteller?” The woman doesn’t break her rhythm as she continues washing her clothes in the river. “Moved on a ways back. Bored, I reckon. Most of us would have been happy to let her stay. Saved the whole village before I was born. And touched by the gods, they say.” She slings the washing into a basket. “Never aged. Wouldn’t have bothered me, but I suppose it may have done for some people.”

“Yes, I could see how that might be the case,” the Doctor observes dryly, without irony. Even he aged, however slowly. Had, in fact, lost a few bodies to the ravages of years, including the last.

The woman squints at the Doctor. “If you don’t mind me asking, you don’t look old enough to remember her yourself. Are you touched by the gods?”

“The devil, maybe,” he mutters. “If you’ll excuse me?..”


	90. Viking Excavation Site

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do all archaeologists take advantage of Bring Your Wife To Work Day? Or just River Song?

“What do you say?” River asks Ash. “A trip, just the two of us? I’ve got just the place. And,” she pulls the petite woman to an intimate distance, “just between you and me, I get so jealous of the way he looks at his traveling companions sometimes.”

“So this is your way of saying, ‘fuck you, I’ve got my own amoral, immortal pint-size fuck-toy?’” 

River grins. “Oh, I’m going to _love_ you.” They take the police box, because River doesn’t spend nearly enough time with her third parent.

“Professor Song!” hails a man in a denim jacket. “Good of you to join us. Brought a research assistant, have you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” River evades. “Nice to see you, Jacque.”

“I don’t know anything about archaeology,” Ash hisses.

“Neither do most of my research assistants,” River snarks. “But you, at least, should know something about the time period we’re going to be unearthing.”

Ash feels a familiar chill. “Vikings?” she hazards.

“Very good.”

“I hardly remember anything,” she protests, but she finds her feet walking familiar paces, almost without her bidding, as she enters the excavation: the layout of the village, the width of the path. 

“We’ve found one,” Jacque says proudly. “Mostly intact. Male, judging by the grave goods.”

Ash takes one look at the corpse, mummified with the cold, and snorts. “Oh, please; she hasn’t got a beard. And the cut of her tunic is all wrong for a man.” 

Jacque splutters a bit; something a _bit_ more intellectually sound comes out, but all Ash hears is “But, but, sword!”

“Honestly,” River goads him, “You’d think a woman didn’t know how to use a phallus.”

“Please,” Ash says with mock severity, “not in front of the children.”

“So,” River says later, as they brush dust away from pottery fragments, “this must bring back memories.”

“No,” Ash replies icily. “Not really.”

“I wish I could forget parts of my childhood sometimes,” River offers. She smiles. “Not the bits where I got to grow up alongside my parents.”

“Just stop.” Ash turns away bitterly. “This is why I don’t like going backwards.” She’s been going relentlessly forward for so long: the oldest form of time-travel.

“Hey,” River puts down her tools, places a comforting hand on Ash’s shoulder. “Rivers only flow in one direction, too, you know. I couldn’t go back to those times, even if I wanted to.”

“Would you want to?” Would she? She thinks, perhaps, a village much like this one was the only place she ever felt like home (until now, a treacherous part of her brain adds). 

“Maybe.” She shrugs. “Bit of a moot point, really. I’m sorry I brought you here if…”

“Don’t be,” Ash’s shoulders slump. “It was a good idea.”

“Do you want to go?”

“No, let’s stay. For a little while, at least.”


	91. Greyheath Manor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes run into some trouble in a haunted house.

“Vital signs strong, but lifeless,” River announces. She flashes her new sonic screwdriver into Ash’s glassy eyes.

“Shouldn’t she be getting better?” Clara asks. “Isn’t that the whole thing with the Mire chip?”

“Ah, that will cure physical injuries,” said the Doctor. “But not, I expect, whatever the mind wraith has done to her.” Fortunately the creature had been banished back to its rightful plane; they were safe for the moment. “She’s in a coma, but stable.”

“Right, now what?” River asks. “Keep her warm and wait for her to recover.”

The Doctor stands and paces. “Ordinarily, yes.”

“Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?” 

“You learn to expect it,” River confirms.

“But fortunately for all involved, she’s been shagging approximately one and a half Time Lords for the past year. And unlike humans,” he pauses to allow Clara to glare at him, which he reads to mean ‘if you say this is another thing Time Lords are naturally superior at, she won’t be the only one in a comatose state, _and_ you shan’t get any for a week.’ Possibly a fortnight; he found her face difficult to read at times. “Time Lords form telepathic bonds with their sexual partners. Hence the looming.” Fortunately they’d found a sitter for the evening; he didn’t want to have to explain this to the wee ones.

“Please tell me this isn’t going to be a seance,” River moans.

“We went to a seance together once. Sort of.” Clara says. “Nobody got killed.”

“It isn’t a seance. More like a group hug. We just have to pull her back to herself.” 

“So much for ‘not the hugging type,’” Clara teases as they circle Ash in their arms.

“Shh,” he replies quietly, uncharacteristically still. 

Time passes, probably, but at last Ash stirs. “Is everything alright?” she asks, and the others just laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Insofar as the foursome is the Grail, then it should really have healing powers, shouldn't it?


	92. Hyde Park, 1969

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor takes Ash on a date.

“The Rolling Stones. Hyde Park. 1969.” The Doctor’s eyes gleam. “The greatest rock and roll band in the world. Who’s game?”

To his surprise, Ash springs up at once, but the other two women demur. “Guess it’s just the two of us.” 

“Their loss,” he scoffs. He looks the part, black jacket over a concert tee and plaid trousers. He slides some levers and punches some buttons, bringing them to their destination. Standing in front of the door, he snaps his fingers, letting the opening bars and the noise of a quarter-million fans stream in.

“You have got to be shitting me,” Ash proclaims as Jagger asks the crowd to allow him to introduce himself as a man of wealth and taste. She shakes her head. The man did have a knack for entrances.

“It seemed appropriate.” He looks to her, almost shyly. God, she thinks, he’s looking for approval.

“I’ve been on worse dates,” she allows him. Contented, they bask in the music and the roar, and after the first one, they don’t have to beat the tar out of anyone else who thinks Ash has dragged her dad along.

“Hey, you, get off of my cloud!”

“It doesn’t hurt, you know, to let people onto your cloud,” he murmurs. He’s learned that lesson, long and hard. She merely smiles at him, and the band repeats the line.

“Hey, you, get off of my cloud!”


	93. Moors of Scotland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are shameless Othello references and the set-up from last chapter is paid off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

“...but a Scotsman says 'hey, McCloud, get off my ewe!'” Yes, he thinks, they have reached that drunken, carefree state where sheep-fucking seems hilarious.

They laugh, whisky warming them as they trek over the moors. Partially because Clara's finally talked him into a kilt (the same sort of greeny-black plaid as his usual trousers). Partially because she's decided to match him in a pleated plaid skirt and black blazer. And partially because they are telling vulgar jokes at the expense of the Scots.

Clara giggles and stops, her hand brushing the fabric of his kilt. He stiffens; make of that what you will. “So Doctor, why do Scotsmen wear kilts?” Her tone is suggestive enough that he forgets it's meant to be a joke and spends countless milliseconds combing his memory for tidbits about sartorial history. She coughs, drawing his attention. “Because a sheep can hear a zipper a mile off.” Her voice is breathy. Somehow she has misplaced her shoes, her jacket, and her skirt, revealing that she is also wearing it in the traditional fashion. She looks the part of the lamb in a thin shirt and socks to the knee, both white.

“Please, Doctor,” she says, blushing, eyes closed, because usually she is the one to take the lead in bed but sometimes a woman just wants to have her bones completely and utterly jumped. “Don't make me 'baa,'” she begs, because the warmth of her embarrassment and arousal is the only thing keeping her from turning gooseflesh in some very intimate places.

“Now?” he asks, drawn irresistibly to her. 

“Even now,” she murmurs, eyes down but the corners of her face curling up. “Very now?” she asks, just before he tears her shirt from her and bears her to the ground. Oh, fuck, she thinks, grinning into her lapels. She thinks that bit of stone is going to break the skin before the evening is over, but that's what antiseptic is for. This is what she _needs_.


	94. SS Fisher King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes encounter a ghost ship.

“Deserted and in disrepair,” the Doctor pronounces. River draws her sonic blaster. 

“The SS Fisher King,” River recites. “The legendary ghost ship. Nobody has boarded it and left again.”

Clara dons her sonic sunglasses despite the shadowy corridors of the ship. “I’m not seeing any signs of life.”

“Well, we wanted a mysterious derelict ship,” Ash says coolly. “Just as glad we got one.”

They stay close: the old ship is cramped and creaky. More than once they need to dodge spurts of steam or smother electrical fires. They don’t see any survivors.

“Wonder what killed all those people,” Clara asks aloud. The Doctor has taken turns holding each of their hands; River has tried not to look too jealous.

As if in answer to her question, the main doors of the room they are in slam shut. “Deadlock sealed,” the Doctor announces. “Fortunately, everyone has a sonic tool, so this should only take a few minutes.” Two access hatches open, revealing spidery maintenance droids brandishing a medley of welding torches, cutting lasers, and climbing claws. “On second thought, we could just stay here.” He smoothes the nap of his velvet jacket.

“A pure specimen is required,” rumbles a sterile voice from above.

“Of course the psychotic AI is still functioning,” Ash sighs. “Lights, thrusters, hull integrity, all kaput. But heaven forbid the psychotic AI suffer a breakdown.”

“One of my favorite spouses was a psychotic AI,” River cautions her. A bolt from her sonic blaster ricochets harmlessly off the metal shells of the spiders.

“Was that the Nestene duplicate, or is this someone else?” The Doctor grouches.

“A pure specimen is required,” the AI cuts River’s response short.

“Look, will you stop saying that.” The Doctor’s exasperation shifts to curiosity. “No, wait, shut up, sorry, say that again?”

“Never know what you’re going to get from you,” Ash mutters.

“He’s always like that,” Clara whispers.

“A pure specimen is required,” the computer bleats.

The Doctor raises one hand, pointing a finger towards the low ceiling. “What kind of specimen?” 

“Blood.”

“Well, that’s not so bad,” Clara says, rolling up her sleeve. A syringe appears from another access hatch, attached to an immense glass container. She gulps. It looks weirdly like a fishtank. If, y’know, the fish were as big as she was.

“A pure specimen is required,” the voice repeats emotionlessly as the syringe moves towards them. 

“Pure blood?” Ash asks. “Sorry, I’m a little bit Mire.”

“Human plus, sorry,” River adds.

“Placental transfer’s a hell of a thing,” Clara notes, patting her abdomen and the part-Time Lord within.

“Required for what?” The Doctor asks. 

“Required by customs.” The spidery droids inch closer and closer to them.

“Tradition?” Ash wonders. “Not a very good reason for draining us dry.”

“Customs, not custom,” Clara points out.

“Like the border patrol,” River nods knowingly. “So annoying.” She shakes her head. “A woman has to find the most _creative_ places to store her contraband.” The Doctor gulps audibly.

“A pure specimen is required.”

“A blood test,” the Doctor realizes. “It wants to make sure we don’t have any drugs in our systems. Can’t imagine how big the creature must be for which that would be a typical blood draw.”

“Given that we can’t shoot our way out and being bled to death is not an option, anyone have any bright ideas?” Clara asks.

“Easy,” the Doctor says, voice steely. “You three open one of the doors while I distract them, then we set off the self-destruct before sprinting to the TARDIS.”

“Doctor, how are you going to…” she stops as the Doctor takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeve. “No, no, no.” She takes him by the hands. “I am carrying your child. And _so help me_ that child is going to grow up with his or her father.” She glares up at him. “Understood?”

“Yes, boss.” He tries, fails, to make light of the moment. “Understood.” He winces as the needle jabs into him.

“Already on it,” Ash quips before Clara can bark at them to hurry. As it is, she paces back and forth until the door clicks open.

“Come on,” she cries, tugging the Doctor away and out the door Ash and River are holding open. “You alright?”

“Just a little light-headed,” he boasts before sagging to the floor. 

“Come on, dear,” River says absently, sweeping him into a fireman’s carry. Clara drapes his coat over him to keep him warm. “Now let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the Doctor winds up doing double-duty as both Percival and Percival's sister in this one. But that's still better than having a villain named the Fisher King, a hero whose act includes asking questions, and having them have a stunningly generic adventure.


	95. New New Midgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is fluff, little people, and misunderstandings.

“Oh my God!” Clara cries as they step out of the TARDIS into rolling green hills and fields. “Is this month’s trip to the Shire? That’s brilliant!” She waddles heavily over to one of the mound-dwellings and peers into the window.

“Don’t I know you?” one of the diminutive natives asks Ash, who looks a tiny bit flustered and clasps her hands over her own somewhat less pregnant belly. They have attracted quite the crowd, including what looks to be a visiting delegation of space-elves.

“No, I’m afraid we’re not from around here.” She snorts. “Honestly, just because I’m short.”

The tiny man turns to the Doctor. “In that case, shame on you, Gandalf! You should have told us you were bringing guests.”

River looks, pained, at ‘Gandalf.’ “Oh, I hate you.”

The Doctor tuts at her. “Not where the tykes can hear you!” He pats each rounded belly in turn. “She really doesn’t, you know. Of course you know, such a clever thing you are.” He turns back to the halfling. “Sleepy! No dark lords threatening your agricultural tranquility?” 

“Praise the Mother, no,” says Sleepy. “Rollo Southacre, at your service. Please, allow me to show you around and offer you some light refreshment. It’s the least I can do for Master Gandalf and his guests.” He gives a hopeful look to the Doctor. “And perhaps he can share some of his infamous fireworks after the sun sets.”

Clara and the Doctor fall to the rear of the little party. “I wasn’t sure you’d like this place,” he admits.

“What, are you daft? It’s like the Shire come to life, _Gandalf_.”

The Doctor allows himself a smile at that. Even shoves his fists proudly into his jacket pockets. “I suppose I should say, I wasn’t sure how keen you’d be on the source material. I’m pretty sure female characters only make their way into Lord of the Rings by accident.”

“Well,” Clara blushes, “not entirely by accident.” The Doctor raises his uncanny eyebrows; Clara laughs and threads her arm through the loop of his. “Maybe if you’re good, I’ll tell you about a little trip we took to Oxford. But seriously, you know I was a teenage girl who grew up to be an English teacher, right? Of course I went on a major epic fantasy kick. Alanna the Lioness, the Irongates Sagas, Pern, all that jazz. Devoured it. So, yeah, of course I read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.” 

That anecdote takes them into another, and another, as they stroll through the sunshine until the dusk. Finally they reach the Southacre abode and the promised “light refreshments.” In practically no time at all, Clara is stuffed fit to burst.

“My blessings to your children,” Rollo offers, raising his mug of small beer. “Pray, who are the lucky fathers?”

Clara, River, and Ash blush. Finally Ash coughs something bearing a passing resemblance to “Gandalf.”

“What?” Rollo asks with obvious disbelief.

River squeezes the Doctor’s arm. “I certainly don’t think you were able to convince them you were a sexless god in this body.”

“Oh, we would not object if good Master Gandalf wished to sire children on one of the tall folk. But it is well known that the tall folk and the small folk simply cannot…” He gestures to Clara’s swollen midsection.

“Seriously, what part of ‘I am not a hobbit’ do you people not understand?” Ash’s annoyance bristles underneath her deadpan. “We’re both human.”


	96. Steppes of Panjak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the party gets a little bigger. And I don't just mean the Paternoster Gang.

“No, and I mean it,” the Doctor lies. “Look at you! You’re nearly as wide as you are tall!”

“So we’ll go someplace safe, and quiet. If we look out the door and there’s a hint of trouble, we turn straight back.”

Ash and River just stand off to the side snerking. “Fine, but we’re taking Strax with us.” 

“Hang on,” Ash asks as they step out into the greenhouse, “we’re stopping off for the clone warrior and not either of the women. For, y’know, potential childbirth.”

“Lesbian,” Jenny points at herself.

“Oviparous,” Vastra mirrors her wife’s gesture.

“Medically trained and capable of producing copious amounts of lactic fluid!” Strax jerks first one thumb, then the other at himself.

“That was way more information than I ever needed.” Ash covers her ears with her hands. “Let’s...let’s just go.”

“Jenny and Vastra too, please,” River insists. “Because we might need every pair of hands we can get...especially if one of us goes prematurely.” Oh God, she thinks, I’m going to be the sensible one. Shoot me now. Shoot me in the head.

“Especially since you have a dizzy spell every time I say things like ‘you’re going to be a space dad.’” Clara snorts as the Doctor sags into an armchair.

“Steppes of Panjak, here we come,” Ash says, ushering them into the TARDIS. 

The next three hours pass in domestic bliss. 

Then Clara lets out a groan. “Here it comes!” The Doctor promptly loses control of his legs and collapses into a heap. She tries squatting--heard it was supposed to be easier, but then her leg spasms and she compromises on lying so the gentle slope of the steppe will help things along.

Then there is quite a lot of pushing, and swearing, and at the end of it Strax is holding a screaming little thing.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Clara asks.

River rolls her eyes as Jenny babbles and Strax stares, dumbfounded, at the infant. “Girl,” she reports.

“Is that _really_ how your species propagates?” Vastra asks dubiously. “It seems awfully bloody and messy.” This earns her a reflexive ‘Oi!” from her wife.

“For heaven’s sake, give her to me.” Clara takes her daughter with shaking hands. The Doctor crawls over to them. “What do you think about Eleanora? And call her Nora?”

“Perfect,” and he isn’t talking about the name, though that will do as well.


	97. Chlorifax Mountain Range

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara calls someone very important.

After they drop off the Doctor, Clara sets the controls on random, and hits the lever. She just needs to get away, fast, anywhere, anywhen. She staggers out of the Diner, weeping, nearly falls off the goddamn cliff she’s parked on top of, starts laughing hysterically. 

Me watches her silently as she slowly pulls herself together. Clara has just been through quite a lot, Me supposes, but that’s the sort of thing she would want to work out for herself, so she gives Clara the same courtesy. 

She watches as the younger woman pulls out a cell phone and dials a number. Stars, Me thinks, she isn’t?... “Gran,” Clara begins thickly, and Me breathes a sigh of relief.

It was a fresh start for both of them, she mused. More so for Clara--she was a bit like Theseus’s favorite ship at this point. And now she would become a new person yet again. She affects a wry smile as she looks back at the neon lighting of the Diner in the midst of a pristine forest, then looks out over the cliff as she considers this. The company was good, the transportation excellent, and it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. Would she become someone new for Clara Oswald? Yes, she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This being the penultimate week of posts, now seems as good a time to thank everyone who's stuck with it so far and my two terrific betas, infinite regress and imaginary golux.


	98. TARDIS Art Gallery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are tiny hybrid children.

“Daddy, daddy, who painted this one?” Arthur tugs at the hem of his jacket.

 

“An old friend of your Mummy Clara and I.” A smile comes naturally to his face, and oh, how strange it is to think those words. “Good old Rigsy.”

 

“Finally stopped calling him Local Knowledge?” Clara musses Arthur’s hair as she looks at her own painted smile. Arthur laughs. “Your old man had a bit of a habit of giving people insulting nicknames. I think he’s finally grown out of it.” 

 

Only people I was worried might steal you away, he thinks at her.

 

Oh, and what did you call Jane Austen, then?

 

His eyes widen, and he clasps her hand possessively. 

 

“I’m going to draw Mummy Clara too,” Arthur decides and runs ahead of them. “And Mummy River and Daddy and Mummy Ash and Sister Nora and Brother Cai and Sister Audrey and the TARDIS and the Diner!” he calls gaily, sprinting ahead.

 

“You’ll need an awful big piece of paper,” the Doctor says.

 

“Lots of big papers in the library,” Arthur announces, putting on speed with enthusiasm. 

 

“We’ll have to run to catch him before he gets too far ahead and the TARDIS helps him along,” the Doctor. “The Old Girl dotes on him.”

 

“As any grandparent should,” Clara teases. She squeezes the Doctor’s hand. “Come on then,” and they dash merrily forward.


	99. Oswald-Smith-Song cottage, Darillium

Out at the edge of town there sits a diner, a delight of polished chrome and red leather. Next to the diner is a house, a quaint little thing of bricks and shingles. Behind the house is a little blue outbuilding, what one almost might mistake for a shed but for the curious legend it bears above the door.

 

Or, at least, usually there is a diner, and usually there is an outbuilding. The little house with the green trim seems to be a permanent fixture, gods willing. Still, the more cautious townsfolk keep their distance, thank you kindly.

 

Idris knows better to complain when she actually gets a bit of a rest, and with four skilled pilots/mechanics/caretakers she purrs as centuries of undone repairs are finally addressed.

 

Dinah, on the other hand, had been languishing in a storage facility for eons before her pilots had found her. She is used to sitting still (unlike the creatures of flesh she ferries about once per one of their months) but that does not mean she enjoys it, and she tells Idris as much.

 

“Still, the company is good,” Idris remarks. Sharing space mentally, even as an omnipresent time/space vessel, is no substitute for physical proximity. 

 

“Oh, certainly,” Dinah agrees. “I just know we’ll get bored eventually. And so will they. And then they’ll move on.”

 

“My Child is about to,” Idris notes wistfully, for a TARDIS-relevant value of soon. “She won’t see me again like this.” This doesn’t scare her as much as it might; she’s seen so many forms come and go. But she knows, down in her core, that never will she see the six of them together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to semi-subtly (?) channel Arthur's lament before the Grail quest that he knows this will be the last time he will have his whole fellowship gathered together.


	100. The Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is an old face, and a new face.

“Hey, you,” Clara says softly. He’s come to the end at last, she can tell. 

 

“Didn’t think you’d turn up,” he wheezes. She looks...he squints...hurt? “You told me once to die with someone else.”

 

“Just your luck I’m an incredible liar, then.” She wipes away a tear, then gasps as he falls, shuddering, to the ground. 

 

“Stay back,” he cautions her. “It’s going to…” He trails off. “Just...be there.” She nods, sobbing, but does as she is told.

 

He looks up at her, and smiles, and his eyes close as they fill with gold. “First face this face saw,” he breathes, “and the last.” His eyes stay closed as his face changes. She waits, silent, then presses a kiss to strange lips. “Where are you going?” he asks as she backs away. _Stay_ , he projects wordlessly to her. _I need you_.

“You remember?” she asks, knowing the answer. 

“Everything.” His eyes fix on her back. 

“Then you know where I’m going. Why I have to.” He can hear the snag in her voice. “Find a new first face, Doctor; you always need us.” 

“This is goodbye, then?” He stares at her, door nearly closed behind her. She doesn’t dare turn to face him because she knows that they’ll never stop. “Nothing more I can say?” 

“My dear Doctor, haven’t we already said everything there is to say? Everything that can be said?” She feels full and heavy with a life lived and more than lived. 

“Clara--” She can hear the raw emotion in his voice, the magnetism calling to her. So she closes the door, and walks, sobbing, measured steps, back to the Diner. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I almost ended the story here. Ha-ha-ha, that would have been a mistake.
> 
> Also if the Doctor doesn't get to see Clara again before he regenerates, I may cry.


	101. Library Data Core

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so they not-lived happily ever after.

Clara opens her eyes. She doesn’t expect to. Hell, she doesn’t expect to do anything. She remembers saying goodbye to her Doctor (and not her Doctor anymore; doesn’t that hurt?) and kissing Ash goodbye. She remembers landing on Gallifrey and hoping Ash managed to pilot the Diner away. She remembers walking back out onto Trap Street, seeing Me and the Doctor, utterly destroyed, knowing she has already forgiven them, wishing she could whisper one last farewell to each of them. She even remembers the Raven.

 

“So is this Heaven, then?” she asks the grassy fields. 

 

“I’m certainly flattered, dearest, but you should know that I’m no angel,” a familiar voice teases. 

 

“River?”

 

“More or less.” She holds her palms out, open. “Thank you for rescuing me, by the way. Or a copy, at any rate. Or am I the copy? These things are ever so tedious.”

 

“But how am I?.. Why am I?...” She abandons her fits and starts. “I was going to die with my memories intact; I never wanted to go on forever.”

 

“Ah,” interrupts another voice, all too familiar. “You may find that your cognitive capacity has been somewhat _enhanced_ here. My fault, by the way. Jabbed a bit of tech into you; told you it was to help stabilize your biochemistry with a hybrid pregnancy. Which, to be fair, it did do that, and helped straighten out a minor defect in your spine. Didn’t intend that last one, but what the hell, you got an extra eighth of an inch out of the deal.” The Doctor shrugs as he steps into view.

 

“You... _bastard_!” Clara laughs. “So now what, is Ash going to magically appear and complain about being shorter than me?”

 

“Maybe,” offers a coy voice. “Right now I’m just the sum of my journals; I expect the original will take her sweet time getting here--I’m still terrified of dying, and I’m just a literary construct. Did you know I was a high priestess on five different planets? I can remember everything, now. Kind of scary, really.”

 

“So now what?” Clara asks.

 

“Let me give you the grand tour,” River offers. “We’ll end in biography, reverse-alphabetical order, because otherwise we won’t see anything else; Jane has been ever so anxious to see you.” She winks. “I’m almost jealous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Thank you again to anyone and everyone who has gotten through the entire slog. There will probably be a few miscellaneous dribs and drabs yet to go up in a different story, but this is the end of the work proper.


End file.
